Did A Physician Reassure You That You Had A Cyst And Instead You Had Breast Cancer
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-09-29 16:31:47 | Word Count: 841
Female patients have faith that their physicians will recognize the difference between a substantial health problem and something that does not pose any risk to their wellbeing. A particular issue to which this apples is with cancer of the breast. Women rely on physicians to order every proper tests whether it be physical breast examinations, a mammogram, an aspiration or a biopsy to detect any cancer that might exist as early as achievable. The presence of a lump in a breast raises concern immediately. This is where the physician can do the right thing or the wrong thing. In general, physicians acknowledge that the standard of care requires the physician to perform tests to discover if that lump is cancerous. The reason most physicians acknowledge that this is the appropriate strategy is because a physician cannot ascertain whether the lump is cancerous or benign after only doing a physical examination (even when coupled with other factors such as the woman's age and family history).
There are two statistical facts physicians are aware of. The majority of abnormalities that arise in the breast are benign. Females oyunger than fifty are significantly less likely to have cancer of the breast than those above that age. Because of these 2 statistics a number of doctors are likely to dismiss a lump as simply a benign cyst if it occurs in a female under the age of fifty. Basically the odds are that such a patient does not have breast cancer.
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However, this is not the end of the story. If breast cancer is diagnosed while in its less early stages (for example, stage 0, stage I or stage II), the 5-year survival rate is normally over 80%. The five-year survival rate is a statistical measure used by cancer specialists to discern the percentage of patients who survive the cancer for at least five years following detection. Therefore, a five-year survival rate higher than 80% means that, statistically, more than 80 out of every 100 patients with a less advanced stage breast cancer will, with appropriate treatment, survive the disease for at least 5 years beyond diagnosis.
Should cancer of the breast not be detected until it gets to a stage III (typically involving larger cancerous masses in the breast or a spread of the cancer to lymph nodes), the five-year survival rate falls to roughly 54%. With regard to stage IV (typically involving a cancerous mass that is larger that five cm or the spread of the cancer to the bone or other organs, such as the lungs), the five-year survival rate is in the region of 20%.
It is expected that one in eight females will have breast cancer in the course of their lifetime. It is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in women. In excess of one hundred ninety thousand women are expected to be newly diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year. Furthermore more than forty nine thousand females are predicted to die of breast cancer this year. Given that women whose breast cancer is detected and treated while still in the early stages have a better than eighty percent chance of outliving the cancer for more than five years after diagnosis, a question that should be asked is what percentage of those forty thousand or more females who will pass away of from advanced breast cancer this year would otherwise continue leading their lives if their cancer had been no delay in diagnosing their cancer.
By conducting a clinical breast examination a physician simply is not able to accurately distinguish between a benign cyst and a cancerous growth. Because of this , a physician should generally advocate that diagnostic testing be ordered immediately if a lump is found in a woman's breast. Examples of diagnostic tests can include an imaging study such as a mammogram or an ultrasound, or a sampling, such as by biopsy or aspiration. Each test has the potential for a false negative so it might be important to perform more than one test before breast cancer can be ruled out.
If a physician diagnoses a mass in a woman's breast as only a benign fibroid cyst after only performing a clinical breast examination, that physician puts the woman at risk of not learning she has breast cancer until it spreads to an advanced, perhaps incurable, stage. The failure to conduct appropriate diagnostic testing, like an imaging study such as a mammogram or ultrasound, or a sampling, such as a biopsy or aspiration, might constitute a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may bring about a medical malpractice claim.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting delayed diagnosis of cancer cases. To get more information breast cancer and other cancer matters including metastatic prostate cancer and other cancer matters including visit the websites
