New York Malpractice Attorneys: Delayed Diagnosis of Cancer
Delays in the diagnosis of cancer occur for many reasons, including:
- Ignoring or failing to follow-up on patient complaints; a physician should never ignore or minimize a patient's concerns that something is wrong just because the physician's examination has negative findings;
- Assuming that a condition has a "benign" cause"; such as attributing rectal bleeding to hemorrhoids or hoarseness or cough to an upper respiratory tract infection;
- Accepting a symptom as a diagnosis, rather than determining the actual cause of the symptom; such as treating anemia without determining the cause of the symptom;
- Relying upon an indirect means of diagnosis; such as accepting x-rays or mammograms as definitive, when an a diagnosis can only be made by a biopsy;
- Failing to follow-up or re-evaluate a patient; such as in the case of a patient with a borderline lymph node enlargement; a patient with hoarseness and a cough; a woman who has a lump in her breast during her menstrual period; or a man with a rising PSA;
- Failing to review and follow-up abnormal laboratory or radiological reports; this often occurs because a report is filed in a patient's medical chart without being read or because of a failure to promptly communicate the result to the patient;
- Accepting a negative test result as correct without following up to determine the actual cause of the condition;
- Failing to interpret radiological and laboratory tests correctly; studies demonstrate that substantial percentages of chest x-rays, mammograms, PAP smears, and similar tests are interpreted incorrectly;
- Failing to obtain a complete and accurate history, including all family, employment, environmental and personal risk factors;
- Failing to perform a through and adequate physical examination and correlating those findings with test results.
When a health care provider's malpractice causes a delay in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and that delay results in a poorer prognosis for the patient, the health care provider may be held liable for the resulting damages.
For additional and more detailed information click here regarding delays in diagnosing specific types of cancer, click here:
Delayed Diagnosis of Breast Cancer
Delayed Diagnosis of Lung Cancer
Delayed Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer
Delayed Diagnosis of Bladder Cancer
