The single most common type of cancer for women in the United State is breast cancer. There is a high degree of awareness of this kind of cancer among health care practitioners and the general public. As a result of the high degree of awareness, many women perform regular self-exams and undergo routine mammograms for the early detection of breast cancer. Unfortunately, each year a large number of cancers go undetected, not due to a lack of diligence on the cancer victim’s part, but due to the malpractice of the woman’s health care providers. Early detection and treatment is the key to survival and recovery from cancer, and the malpractice of a health care provider can deny a cancer victim the chance she needs to survive. When this happens, there are grounds for a medical malpractice case based upon a failure to diagnose breast cancer.
Some of the health care practitioners who can be held liable for a failure to diagnose breast cancer include:
Internist, general or family practitioners: for failing to recognize signs and symptoms of breast cancer such as nipple discharge, breast mass, or red or painful breast, failing to make appropriate referrals to a specialist, and failing to order routine screening exams such as mammograms;
Radiologists: for failing to recognize the presence of a cancerous mass on a mammogram or other radiographic study;
Surgeons: when a breast biopsy is ordered, failing to obtain adequate tissue samples from proper site;
Pathologists: for failing to recognize the cancer on microscopic examination.
Delays in the diagnosis of the disease and in the initiation of treatment can cause the disease to spread, necessitating more radical approaches to the treatment of the cancer. At worst, it can doom the cancer victim to a premature, painful, and otherwise preventable death. Anyone who experiences an unnecessary delay in the diagnosis of breast cancer should contact an experienced lawyer who is prepared to meet the special challenges of handling a failure to diagnose breast cancer medical malpractice case.
