Jury Finds Physicians Committed Malpractice By Misreading Mammograms And Awards Patient $12 Million
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-07-03 19:51:07 | Word Count: 572
The mammogram is a primary tool available to physicians to find a woman's breast cancer while it is still in the early stages, thereby saving the lives of these patients. Yet doctors sometimes misread memmograms by either not noticing an abnormality that is present or interpreting it as noncancerous. If a mistake is made in the interpretation of a mammogram it might delay the detection of the woman's cancer. This delay may be enough time for the cancer to metastasize, lowering the chances that she will be able to conserve the breast or outlive the cancer.
Examine the published claim of a woman who went in for a routine mammogram and was informed that there was no indication of cancer. Roughly two years after, the woman had another mammogram. This time the mammogram was interpreted as exhibiting no change to the dilated duct from the previous mammogram. However, the prior mammogram had not evidenced a dilated duct and thus the physicians did nothing to look into the suspicious reverse from the previous, clear, mammogram. Her mammogram was misinterpreted and her cancer was not detected. When she had a subsequent mammogram performed at a different hospital the coming year, the physician interpreting the mammogram listed a number of small nodular densities. The physician observed that these remained unchanged from the past mammograms. Still, both of the previous mammograms included no signs of nodular densities. Once again, her mammogram was misinterpreted and again her cancer was not detected.
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Ultimately it was found that your woman did have breast cancer, only by the time it was diagnosed it had metastasized having already spread. It was additionally discovered that the area that had previously been labelled a dilated duct was location of the primary tumor. The woman pursued a lawsuit against both physicians and hospitals. The doctor and hospital that read the third mammogram as showing small nodular densities payed out an unpublished sum in an amount less that the $2.0 million available in insurance coverage. The physician and hospital that misread the earlier mammogram declined to settle for the full amount of the policy, offering only $125,000. The case proceeded to trial where evidence was introduced that had the mammogram not been misread the cancer might have been found while only a Stage 1 cancer, which usually has a 5 year survival rate higher than 90%. The law firm that represented the woman reported that the jury gave the woman $12,000,000.
This matter demonstrates various important points. To begin, 2 independent mammograms were incorrectly interpreted by 2 distinct doctors at two different hospitals. Also both doctors attributed results to prior mammograms which were actually not present in those earlier mammograms. It is tough to figure out how this could have taken place unless the doctors both looked at a different patient's mammogram as the comparison. Yet the odds of this occurring twice at two different hospitals is extremely improbable. But the amount of carelessness that would be necessary otherwise is genuinely unexcusable. The jury appears to have agreed.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting cancer cases. You can learn Find more information about advanced breast cancer and other cancer matters including advanced prostate cancer visit the websites
