Why A Medical Malpractice Claim May Follow A Physician's Delay In Diagnosing Prostate Cancer
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-09-16 22:21:18 | Word Count: 523
Imagine you are a man and you go to your doctor for your yearly checkup. Imagine the physician orders blood tests, including a PSA test which is used for the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. So far, so good. This is the way to determine if a male without any symptoms of prostate cancer may in fact have it. Imagine the results actually were not normal.
However, there continues to be debate amid some physicians over the way to test asymptomatic male patients for prostate cancer or whether to screen at all. They take the position that screening has little, if any, value. One factor, nevertheless, remains consistent. If the result of a screening test is abnormal the patient ought to be informed about the results and either be referred to a specialist or be told about the option for diagnostic testing, for example a biopsy. Once more, though, a number of doctors also take the position that, at least under certain situations, a male patient who is diagnosed with prostate cancer does not need to undergo treatment immediately and only should carefully monitor the cancer.
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If the doctor does not 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 doctor noted that the patient's prostate was enlarged or there was a nodule on the gland and the PSA test results showed abnormally high levels of the antigen and the doctor did not notify the patient about the abnormal results, the individual would in all likelihood believe that meant there was no need to follow up.
The longer the delay in finally carrying out tests that will lead to a diagnosis of the cancer the larger the risk that by the point it is finally diagnosed the cancer will have attained an advanced stage. This will drastically lessen treatment options, will remove the possibility of a cure, and will shorten the patient's life. There are cases that allege a physician did screen a male and the test results were abnormal but the doctor did not inform the patient and failed to follow up.
Screening tests may yield false positives. This means that a percentage of patients with abnormal screening results actually do not have cancer. But performing screening tests for cancer is meaningless without follow up as it gives the patient a false sense of security believing that he has no cancer as the doctor screened him but did not tell him that the screening tests showed he might have cancer. Physicians normally recognize that there is a requirement for follow up when the results of screening tests come back as abnormal.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting cancer cases. To learn about metastatic prostate cancer and other cancer matters including advanced breast cancer visit the websites
