How A Physician Might Be Accountable For Delay In Detecting Prostate Cancer Until It Metastasizes
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-07-12 15:13:11 | Word Count: 499
Imagine you are a man and you see your doctor for your yearly checkup. Imagine the physician orders blood tests, including a PSA test which is used for the early detection of prostate cancer. So far, so good. This is how to check if a man without any symptoms of prostate cancer may in fact 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. They argue that screening has little, if any, value. One factor, however, remains consistent. If the result of a screening test is abnormal the man should be informed of the results and either be referred to a specialist or be told about the option for diagnostic testing, such as a biopsy. Once more, however, a number of doctors also believe that, at least under certain circumstances, a male patient who is diagnosed with prostate cancer does not need to treat it immediately and merely has to carefully monitor the cancer.
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If the physician fails to give the patient the option to undergo screening or does not 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 patient about the abnormal results, the patient would probably think that meant the results were all normal.
If the patient does in fact have cancer, not telling the patient that he might have cancer will postpone his diagnosis. A delay may, in turn, give the cancer time to spread. Once a cancer metastasizes treatment can at best lessen the pace of the progression of the cancer and decrease the effects (for example pain) of the cancer. Under such circumstances, that male and his family may be able to pursue a failure to diagnose medical malpractice claim against the doctor.
Screening tests could yield false positives. This means that certain patients with abnormal screening results will not have cancer. Yet performing screening tests for cancer is meaningless if there is no follow up as it provides the patient an incorrect sense of security thinking that he has no cancer as the doctor tested him and did not inform him that the tests revealed he might have cancer. Physicians commonly recognize that there is a need for follow up if the results of screening tests come back as abnormal.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting cancer cases. Learn about metastatic prostate cancer and other cancer matters including stage 4 breast cancer visit the websites
