Ways A Doctor Might Be Accountable For Delay In Diagnosing Prostate Cancer Until It Metastasizes

Imagine that your physician physically examines your prostate gland for any signs of potential cancer including an enlargement or a hardening of the gland and if there are any nodules detectable on the gland. Imagine the doctor orders blood tests, including a PSA test which is used for the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. So far, so good. This is how to check if a man without any symptoms of prostate cancer might actually have it. Imagine the tests came back outside the normal range

A number of physicians argue that prostate cancer screening, specifically PSA testing, has little or no worth. These doctors hold that screening has little, if any, value. One factor, nevertheless, continues to be constant. If the result of a screening test is abnormal the individual needs to be informed about the results and either be referred to a specialist or be told about the option for diagnostic testing, like a biopsy. Once more, however, some physicians also take the position that, at least under certain situations, a man who is diagnosed with prostate cancer does not have to undergo treatment immediately and only needs to carefully monitor the cancer.

Should this happen, the cancer becomes incurable before the patient turns symptomatic and is finally diagnosed. However, if a doctor detected that the patient's prostate was enlarged or there was a nodule on the gland and the PSA test results suggested abnormally high levels of the antigen and the physician failed to tell the patient about the abnormal results, the patient would likely think that meant the results were all normal.

The lengthier the delay in actually carrying out tests that will lead to a diagnosis of the cancer the larger the likelihood that by the point it is finally diagnosed the cancer will have reached an advanced stage. This will considerably cut down treatment options, will eliminate the possibility of a cure, and will cut short the patient's life. There are malpractice claims where a doctor did screen a male and the test results were abnormal but the physician did not tell the patient and failed to recommend further testing or to refer the man to a specialist.

Screening tests could have false positives. This means that a percentage of patients with abnormal screening results will not have cancer. Yet doing screening tests for cancer is meaningless without follow up as it gives the patient a false sense of security believing that he has no cancer as the doctor screened him and said nothing to him that the screening tests revealed he might have cancer. Doctors commonly acknowledge the requirement for follow up if the results of screening tests come back as abnormal.

By: J. Hernandez

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Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting cancer cases. You can learn about metastatic prostate cancer and other cancer matters including stage 4 breast cancer visit the websites