Man Finds He Has Metastatic Prostate Cancer After Five Years Of Symptoms And Abnormal Tests
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-11-15 20:11:00 | Word Count: 652
Prostate cancer is a terrible disease. Even if not perfect doctors use diagnostics tests to doctors to figure out when the cancer is present in a patient. But as a consequence of the prospect of false negatives (a negative test result even if the patient actually has cancer) doctors must follow up and redo tests as appropriate when patient symptoms and screening tests continue to suggest the possibility of cancer. The failure to do so might give rise to a lawsuit for medical malpractice.
In one published case a man communcated to his family doctor that he was suffering from urinary frequency and burning. The doctor started him on antibiotics and refered the man to a urologist. The urologist performed a cystoscopy which revealed that the patient had an enlarged prostate. The urologist additionally ordered a PSA blood test which registered a 16.3 (anything above a 4.0 is generally considered to be elevated). Therefore the urologist performed a biopsy two months later. The biopsy was interpreted by a pathologist as benign.
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The next year the patient returned to the urologist. This time the PSA blood test was a 2.9 (typically accepted as normal). The urologist concluded that the individual had BPH (a noncancerous enlargement of the prostate). After 3 months the patient went to the PCP for fever and nocturia (needing to urinate during the night). The doctor commenced him on another round of antibiotics. A follow up urine culture registered negative. The primary care physician consequently referred the man back to the urologist. The urologist did a PSA test which registered a 6.4 (again, high).
A biopsy examines portions of the prostate. Thus, it is possible for a biopsy to not catch the cancer. But, the urologist chose to use the prior year's biopsy and to not perform another one as a follow up. Instead, the urologist did nothing to do anything more concerning the patient's symptoms and abnormal PSA.
A year later the patient went back to his family doctor. Complaints continued to include nocturia. On physical examination the doctor noted that the patient had a markedly enlarged prostate. Yet, the doctor did not order a PSA or re-refer him to a urologist. Regular blood testing four months afterwards showed that the man's PSA was at 7.4 Neither doctor did anything to follow up.
One more year goes by at which time the primary care physician recorded that the PSA level was 9.8 Again, no follow up or referral to a urologist. Yet an additional year and the individual is still complaining of nocturia. On this occasion the PSA was 9.7 No follow up and no referral. On the fifth yea following the man's first reports of urinary problems the primary care physician again documented a significantly enlarged prostate gland and a PSA level that had reached a 31. The physician lastly refered the patient back to the urologist.
The urologist confirmed that the patient's prostate was enlarged and put the patient a 2 week regimen of antibiotics to be followed by an additional PSA blood test. After the PSA test was repeated two weeks later it registered a level of 33. A biopsy followed which revealed cancer every sample taken.
Testing afterwards showed that the patient had cancer metastasis to the lymph nodes, the liver and the bone. Even with a course of both hormone therapy and radiation therapy the individual died around 18 months after his diagnosis. The law firm that handled this matter published that the lawsuit settled for $1. Million.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting cancer cases. To learn about prostate cancer and other cancer matters including colon cancer metastasis visit the websites
