$1.25 Million Settlement In Case Claiming Doctor Missed Patient's Indications Of Colon Cancer
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-07-22 14:03:09 | Word Count: 631
Colon cancers sometimes bleed. Under some circumstances, the blood might show up in the stool. IN those circumstances in which the cancer is close to the rectum, the blood could even show up as bright red. Even though the blood cannot be seen, it might nonetheless be possible to find out that the patient is bleeding in other ways. As an example, the loss of blood might appear as anemia. Blood tests might disclose internal loss of blood that may be due to cancer in the colon. Important blood test results to evaluate are the hemoglobin, hematocrit, and Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) levels. Levels below the normal range may indicate blood loss and iron deficiency anemia. Any time a patient presents with levels that are below normal levels for these tests physicians generally agree that there ought to be additional testing to discover the explanation for the blood loss, like the chance of cancer of the colon.
Consider the situation of a 64 year old male patient whose blood tests revealed all of the above. The subsequent year, the man's blood work found a worsening of the patient's condition. Additionally, the man's stools were discovered to be positive for blood. Without any more testing, the patient's physician entered a diagnosis of hemorrhoids into the patient's chart. In addition, the man's PSA level (a test that is used to screen males for prostate cancer) was a 10.3 (anything above a 4.0 is usually viewed as high and worrisome for prostate cancer). The physician did not put any report in the patient's chart to indicate an examination of the gland. The physician did not inform the individual about the high PSA levels and failed to refer him to a specialist.
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Approximately two years after the person went to another doctor. Due to the man's age this physician ordered a barium enema. The result: a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer. The person passed away from the spread of the cancer not even three years after his diagnosis. The individual's family filed a lawsuit against the doctor who dismissed the patient's abnormally low blood test results and dismissed the existence of blood in the man's stool. The law firm that represented the family reported a settlement in the case in the amount of $1,250,000
Blood tests are done for a reason. Abnormal test outcomes suggest that there might be something wrong, perhaps even critically wrong with the patient and require follow up. At times follow up means repeating the blood test within a brief period of time to find out whether the levels improve but when the levels deviate enough from normal levels or continue to worsen, doctors commonly agree that this raises the importance of ordering proper other tests to find out the reason behind those levels. Doctors also commonly consent that blood in the stool of an adult patient requires immediate attention to eliminate the possibility of cancer of the colon as the cause. A colonoscopy is normally used to examine all the colon and either find or rule out the presence of any tumors. This doctor did none of this.
Although the majority of cases that settle do so with no admission of liability by defendants it is no surprise that the law firm that worked on this case was able to report such a considerable settlement.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting cancer cases. For information regarding
advanced colon cancer and other cancer cases including
advanced breast cancer visit the website
