Why A Malpractice Case May Follow A Physician's Delay In Detecting Prostate Cancer

Consider that your physician physically examines your prostate for any signs of potential cancer, such as an enlargement or a hardening of the prostate and whether there are any growths detectable on the gland. Imagine the doctor orders blood tests, including a PSA test for the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. So far, so good. This is the way to determine whether a male without any symptoms of prostate cancer might actually have it. Imagine the tests came back outside the normal range

Certain doctors argue that prostate cancer screening, particularly PSA testing, has little or no worth. These doctors hold that screening has little, if any, value. One factor, nevertheless, remains consistent. If of a screening test is abnormal the patient ought to be told about the results and either be referred to a specialist or be advised about the option for diagnostic testing, for example a biopsy. Once more, however, some doctors also take the position that, at least under certain situations, a male patient who is diagnosed with prostate cancer does not need to undergo treatment right away and just has to carefully monitor the cancer.

If the doctor fails to give the patient the option to undergo screening or fails to tell the patient about the abnormal test results the patient’s prostate cancer may spread and metastasize without the man even knowing he may have cancer. Unfortunately, if a physician noted 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 doctor failed to tell the man about the abnormal results, the man would probably assume that meant there was no need to follow up.
Should the man does actually have cancer, not telling him that he might have cancer will postpone his diagnosis.

A delay may, in turn, allow the cancer to metastasize. When a cancer metastasizes treatment will at best delay the continuing growth of the cancer and reduce the effects (for example pain) of the cancer. There is a category of lawsuits in which the man was ultimately diagnosed but by that time the cancer was advanced and a cure was no longer possible.

Screening tests could yield false positives. This means that a percentage of patients with abnormal screening results will not have cancer. However doing screening tests for cancer is meaningless if there is no follow up as it gives the patient an incorrect sense of security thinking that he has no cancer as the physician tested him but said nothing to him that the screening tests revealed he might have cancer. Physicians normally concur that there is a need for follow up when the results of screening tests come back as abnormal.

By: J. Hernandez

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Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting cancer related cases. To learn more about metastatic prostate cancer and other cancer cases including advanced breast cancer visit the websites