Physician Pays Out Over Half A Million Dollars To Couple After Man's Metastatic Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-10-21 22:24:20 | Word Count: 870
The majority of men and women believe that the single issue associated with a medical malpractice lawsuit, like one regarding a delayed cancer diagnosis, is if the doctor made a mistake. Attorneys, however, realize that there is much more to a medical malpractice lawsuit than simply whether the doctor erred. There are two additional issues that lawyers take into account. First, did the physician's error cause harm to the individual. Second, is the harm sufficient that it makes sense economically to pursue a case.
It is ordinarily easy to determine whether a physician had information, such as a heigh PSA test result or an abnormal digital examination, which would indicate the possibility of prostate cancer. It is often usually fairly easy to ascertain the amount of delay caused by the doctor's actions. The delay is usually the time that passed between when the man was diagnosed and when the doctor first had the information concerning the abnormal PSA or digital examination results.
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What may be harder to calculate is the degree of the injury to the individual. Unless the PSA exceeds at least a 10.0 (a PSa reading higher than a 4.0 is thought to be high) or a bone scan discloses sign of metastasis, regardless of whether the cancer has a high Gleason score, most physicians would admit that it is impossible to figure out the stage of the cancer without performing surgery. Studying the tissue gathered during the surgery determines whether the cancer had already penetrated outside the prostate. Despite a PSA higher than a 10.0 it is still possible that the cancer is still contained and that surgery can eliminate the cancer.
In one published claim, a fifty two year old male had his PSA taken by his physician The PSA level was 2.0 at that time. This level is usually deemed to be well within the normal range. The patient's PSA level was retested by the same doctor two years after that. This time, however, the result indicated that his PSA level had reached a 4.2. Not only is this level usually considered raised (as discussed in medical textbooks and papers) but the lab that analyzed the blood sample actually flagged the level as high in its document to the doctor. The physician followed the man four times in the course of the next 2 . 5 years but did not tell the patient of the abnormal test result or performing a follow-up PSA test. The man next had his PSA tested by the same physician three years after that abnormal reading. At that time the results showed a PSA level of 5.25. The PSA level had risen.
This was the first time the physician told the man of the previously elevated level. Once these results came in, the physician referred the patient to a urologist. A biopsy showed that he had cancer. Surgery disclosed that the cancer had already spread to the seminal vesicles and there was also vascular as well as perineal invasion. Since the cancer had already began spreading beyond the prostate, the surgery lowered his PSA level but was not able to take out all the cancer. The patient thus started hormone therapy. His PSA levels then started to rise post-operatively. This indicates a poor prognosis so that it is unlikely that the patient will live five years after the surgery.
The law firm that handled this claim documented that they achieved a settlement over $500,000 on behalf of the man and his family. The patient was 60 years old at the time of the settlement. The settlement agreement left the chance of a wrongful death case if the man does not live to the applicable statute of limitations.
As this claim shows, the full degree of the harm to the man was not known until the results of the surgery were reviewed and confirmed that the cancer hadreached areas beyond the prostate. Furthermore it was not until the patient's PSA levels started to rise after the surgery that the full extent of the injury could be determined. At that point the attorney was in a position to be able to thoroughly evaluate the patient's claim. An important teaching point from this case is how the law firm made sure that the man's wife did not lose the right to pursue a wrongful death claim if her husband died of the cancer within the time frame allowed by the Statute of Limitations Of course if there will later be a wrongful death case that can be pursued will depend on a number of issues including whether the patient will die due to the cancer or of a different cause and whether it takes place during the time frame permitted by the applicable statute of limitations and statute of repose.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting cancer malpractice cases. To learn about metastatic prostate cancer and other cancer matters including breastcancer visit the websites
