Situations involving late detection of breast cancer usually involves one of two medical-errors (1) Does not perform any diagnostic test to rule out cancer when a lump is felt in the chest and (2) A misinterpretation of a mammography. A doctor must make any of these mistakes and thus holds up cancer detection until it spreads, it may be a case for malpractice.
The first mistake made by doctors does not run any diagnostic test when a woman complains that she has found a lump in a breast examination or additional doctor detects the size during a clinical breast exam screening. Some doctors advise women that only a benin cyst, especially if she is younger than 40 and is not a breast cancer in her family.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that the majority of new cases of breast cancer occur in women over fifty years old, young females can and are diagnosed with breast cancer every day. In addition, a doctor can not determine, using only a clinical breast exam, if a lump in the breast is a cyst or a cancerous benign tumor. That is why a doctor should recommend diagnostic tests to determine whether the mass is cancerous. Among the tests that may be ordered are mammograms, a biopsy or aspiration.
In case the patient has in effect have breast cancer, do not recommend diagnostic testing can result in cancer metastasis. Another mistake made by doctors is to misinterpret mammogram. Doctors use mammography to image structures in the chest that may be cancerous. Mammography creates images inside the chest with low-dose X-rays of the chest compressed patients. The resulting images are then examined by doctors for the presence of all services and changes that may be cancerous.
However, doctors give occasionally overlook what is basically before their eyes. Doctors sometimes miss an abnormal structure or a change that arrives in mammography. Other times, doctors misdiagnose abnormal structure or change as harmless without ordering diagnostic tests such as a biopsy to rule out cancer.
Or other errors may cause a delay in the diagnosis of breast cancer in women. More detection of breast cancer is delayed, the greater the likelihood that the cancer will propagate and reach an advanced stage. If the cancer has spread, treatment options available to women are more limited. In addition, the survival rate at 5 years of women, the probability that a cancer survivors for five years or more, even with treatment, decreases considerably.
Stage III is about 55%. In stage IV, it can be as low as 20%. If the cancer was detected early, the 5-year survival rate was over 80% or even more than 95% if it had been detected early enough.
Medical errors can result in fatal consequences. This is especially for people with cancer. Any holder until the detection of cancer can cause the need for mastectomy, limited treatment options and in some circumstances may even lead to death of the individual. In such circumstances, errors such as those described above may constitute professional misconduct.
The law limits the amount of time a victim of medical malpractice and his family where prosecute any claim (s) legal resulting. Therefore, if you think you or a family member has been the victim of medical malpractice, you should talk to a lawyer immediately.