Failure to Diagnose Cancer

Many types of cancers can be treated successfully if diagnosed early on. However, many cases we handle at The Law Office of Zucker & Bennett, P.C. involve cases where a physician has failed to read a mammogram correctly or has failed to follow-up on an abnormal mammogram.

MS. SANDY BENNETT: Cancer actually includes over 100 diseases that are characterized by the rapid and uncontrollable spread of abnormal cells into tissues of the body. And fortunately, many cancers if they're caught early on are treatable, whereas if they're not diagnosed in their early stages can lead to death. Examples of those types of cancers are lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, testicular cancer, and ovarian cancer. Certain cancers are checked for routinely. Breast cancer is checked for routinely, or should be checked for routinely when a woman goes for her annual mammogram. Again, it's the same as with ovarian cancer. The pap smear is done every year to rule out ovarian cancer. The same thing is true with colon cancer; colonoscopies are done annually in some cases. There are certain cancers that are not screened for routinely and that's the reason why physicians must have a very high index of suspicion when patients present to them with non-specific symptoms. By non-specific symptoms, I mean symptoms that could be caused for a variety of reasons. And what the doctor must do is make what's called a differential diagnosis. He must make a list with all the causes of the symptoms, the most serious and most life threatening causes at the top which would include cancer, and he or she must rule out those serious causes before moving down to the least life threatening causes. And the cases that we handle here at Zucker & Bennett involve cases where a doctor has failed to read a mammogram correctly, has failed to follow-up on an abnormal mammogram. The doctor has failed to adequately and thoroughly explore a colon during a colonoscopy. Certain types of cancer are extremely curable if caught at an early stage, but unfortunately they're fatal if not caught in time.