There are 2 mistakes that doctors are most likely to make that can hold up the diagnosis of a woman's breast cancer - (1) not performing any diagnostic testing to rule out cancer when a lump is felt in the breast and (2) misinterpreting a mammogram. Should a doctor make one of these mistakes and thereby holds up the diagnosis of the cancer until it metastasizes, the woman may have a case for medical malpractice. The first most common error made by doctors is not to order a diagnostic test in the event that a woman says that she discovered a mass in the course of a self-conducted breast examination or the physician detects the lump while performing a routine clinical breast examination. A number of doctors will inform the woman all she has is merely a noncancerous cyst, especially when she is younger than 40 and has no family history of breast cancer.
But, while most new cases of breast cancer occur in females older than 50, younger women can, and are, diagnosed with breast cancer regularly. Further, a physician cannot rule out the possibility of cancer just by conducting a clinical breast examination. For this reason a doctor should recommend diagnostic testing in order to establish if the mass is cancerous. Diagnostic tests the doctor can order include a mammogram, a biopsy or an aspiration.
If the patient does have breast cancer, the failure to order diagnostic testing may lead to the metastasis of the cancer.
The other most likely mistake made by doctors is to incorrectly interpret a mammogram. Mammograms are used to visualize structures in the breast that might be cancerous. The mammogram produces pictures of the inside of the breast with low dose x-rays of the woman's compressed breast. The resulting images are then analyzed by doctors for the presence of abnormalities that might be cancerous. However, doctors occasionally miss what is literally in front of their eyes. At times physicians overlook an abnormal structure or change that shows up in the mammogram. In some other cases, doctors improperly diagnose an abnormality as not cancerous without ordering any diagnostic examination such as a biopsy to rule out cancer.
Either of the errors described above can result in a delay in the detection of the patient's breast cancer. The longer the detection of breast cancer is delayed, the more likely it is that the cancer will spread and reach an advanced stage. If the cancer becomes advanced, the treatment alternatives available to the woman are more limited. Moreover, her 5-year survival rate, the probability that she will be alive at least five years after her diagnosis, even with treatment, diminishes considerably.
Once the cancer gets to the third stage, the survival rate drops to fifty-five percent and by the fourth stage it is only approximately twenty percent. If the cancer had been detected early, the 5-year survival rate would have been over eighty percent, possibly as high as over 95% if it had been diagnosed sufficiently early.
Medical errors can result in deadly effects. This is especially so for people who have cancer. Any hold up to the detection of the cancer can lead to the need for a mastectomy, reduced treatment possibilities, and in some cases, can be even lead to the death of the woman. Under such circumstances, medical errors such as those described above might constitute malpractice
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