Patient With Colon Cancer Metastasis Due To No Screening By Physician May Have A Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-07-09 12:54:35 | Word Count: 799
The second largest number of cancer deaths is from colon cancer.. Each year, roughly 48,000 men and women will die because of colon cancer. Many of these deaths could be avoided with early detection and treatment through routine colon cancer testing before symtoms develop.
When the cancer is located while it is still a small polyp in the course of a routine screening procedure, like a colonoscopy, the polyp might be able to be taken out in the course of the colonoscopy. At this point, there is no requirement for the surgical removal of any segment of the colon. When the polyp grows into a tumor and reaches Stage 1 or Stage 2, the tumor and a section of the colon on each side of the tumore is surgical taken out. The relative 5-year survival rate is over 90% for Stage 1 and 73% for Stage 2.
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In case the cancer gets to a Stage 3, a colon resection is no longer sufficient. The patient will, in addition, need to have chemotherapy. The relative 5-year survival rate falls to 53%, depending on such factors as the quantity of lymph nodes that contain cancer.
As soon as the colon cancer gets to the fourth Stage, treatment may require the use of chemotherapy and perhaps different drugs as well as surgery on other organs. In case the measurement and number of tumors in other organs (such as the liver and lungs) are small enough, surgery on these organs might be the primary treatment, then chemotherapy. In some cases the dimensions or quantity of tumors in the other organs eliminates the choice of surgery as a treatment.
If chemotherapy and different drugs can reduce the number and size of these tumors, surgery may at that point become a viable follow up treatment. Otherwise, chemotherapy and different drugs (possibly through clinical trials) may for a time stop or limit the further progression of the cancer. The relative 5-year survival rate is reduced to around 8%.
As the relative 5-year survival rates indicate, the time frame in which the colon cancer is found and treated results in a significant difference. If found and treated early, the individual has an excellent chance of surviving the disease. As diagnosis and treatment is delayed, the probability starts shifting against the person so that by the time the colon cancer progresses to the lymph nodes, the percentage is almost 50/50. And the chances decrease precipitously when the colon cancer gets to Stage 4.
However, all too often physicians fail to suggest routine cancer screening to their patients. By the time the cancer is eventually detected - sometimes since the tumor has grown so large that it is leading to blockage, since the patient is anemic and it is getting progressively worse, or since the patient begins to notice other symptoms - the colon cancer has already advanced to a Stage 3 or even a Stage 4. The individual now confronts a very different outlook than he or she would have if the cancer had been found early by standard screening.
Attorneys who handle cancer cases often classify this as a "loss of chance" of a better recovery. That is to say, because the doctor did not advisev that the person undergo routine screening test, the cancer is now considerably more advanced and the person has a much lower chance of outliving the cancer. The failure of a doctor to advise the patient undergo screening options for colon cancer may amount to medical malpractice.
Contact a lawyer without delay should you think your colon cancer was not diagnosed until it had already reached an advanced stage as a consequence of a physician's failure to recommend routine colon cancer screening. This article is for general educational purposes only and should not be considered legal (or medical) advice. For any health concerns, consult with a physician. If you think you might have a medical malpractice case contact an attorney immediately. A competent attorney with experience in medical malpractice can assist determine if you have a claim for a delayed diagnosis colon cancer due to a failure on the part of a physician to recommend colon cancer screening. The law limits the amount of time you have to pursue a case so do not wait to call an attorney.
