Jury Finds Physicians Committed Malpractice By Misinterpreting Mammograms And Gives Woman $12 Million
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-07-18 14:57:29 | Word Count: 596
One of the primary tools available to help physicians in saving the lives of women is the mammogram, a test that checks for signs of possible cancer in the breast, letting doctors to spot the cancer in its early stages. Unfortunately the mammogram is only as effective as the doctor who interprets it. In the event that the doctor misreads the mammogram the cancer can go undiscovered until a future mammogram or until a lump is detected by a breast examination. During this time, the cancer might become advanced. By reaching a late stage, the patient has a reduced five year survival rate. This means that the likelihood of her dying of the cancer go up significantly.
Look into the published case of a woman who went in for a routine mammogram and was informed that there was no sign of cancer. About two years after, the woman had another mammogram. This time the mammogram was interpreted as showing no change to the dilated duct from the prior mammogram. But, the earlier mammogram had not evidenced a dilated duct and hence the doctors did nothing to look into the suspicious reverse from the earlier, clean, mammogram. Her mammogram was misinterpreted and her cancer was not detected.
[ advertisement ]
When the woman went in for another mammogram at another hospital the following year, the physician who read the mammogram described various small nodular densities. The physician documented that these had not changed from the prior mammograms. But, neither of the previous mammograms had included any nodular densities. Once again, her mammogram was misread and again her cancer was not detected.
When the woman was finally diagnosed at a future date, the woman had advanced breast cancer that had spread. The main tumor was in the same spot where the earlier mammogram had been interpeted as exhibiting a dilated duct. She initiated a malpractice claim against both physicians and hospitals. The physician and hospital that interpreted the third mammogram as showing small nodular densities reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum in an amount less that the $2.0 million available in insurance coverage. The physician and hospital that misread the prior mammogram would not settle for the full amount of the policy. They were willing to pay only a mere $125,000. The case proceeded to trial where evidence was introduced that had the mammogram not been misread the cancer might have been discovered while still a Stage 1 cancer, which normally has a 5 year survival rate higher than 90%. The law firm that handled the claim reported that the trial generated an award of $12.0 million.
This matter demonstrates several important points. To begin, two independent mammograms were incorrectly interpreted by two different physicians at two distinct hospitals. Plus the two physicians attributed findings to past mammograms which were actually not found in those earlier mammograms. It is tough to explain how this might have happened unless the doctors both compared the mammogram they were interpreting to a different patient's mammogram. However the chances of this occurring twice at two different hospitals is highly unlikely. Yet the amount of carelessness that would be required otherwise is genuinely unexcusable. The jury seems to have agreed.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting catastrophic injury cases. You can learn Find more information about metastasized breast cancer and other cancer matters including advanced prostate cancer visit the websites
