Philadelphia Failure to Diagnose Breast Cancer Lawyers

HELPING VICTIMS OF FAILURES TO DIAGNOSE BREAST CANCER 

Get The Compensation They Deserve

A breast cancer diagnosis is always difficult, but the seriousness is only made more dire when that diagnosis is delayed. Breast cancer is known to be complicated to treat, often requiring some combination of radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and surgery depending on the specific type of cancer.

The complication in treating breast cancer makes it especially hard for patients to combat. With the wide amount of treatments taking a mental and financial toll that can be difficult for families to recover from. A delayed diagnosis due to a failure on the part of medical professionals only makes the road harder, potentially causing unnecessary death, and, at minimum, a longer road to recovery.

Medical malpractice laws exist to hold healthcare providers accountable when their failures cause worsened healthcare outcomes for the patients that trusted their health to them. If you have a medical malpractices case, you could be entitled to damages for your physical pain, emotional suffering, and financial losses.

At Thistle Law, we’ve handled many medical malpractice cases and have seen failures to diagnose breast cancer arise for a number of reasons. We’ll take a look at some common scenarios that lead to diagnosis failures and what steps you should take if you or a loved one

Frequently Asked Questions About Failure to Diagnose Breast Cancers

Risk Factors for Breast Cancer

There are a number of risk factors for breast cancer, but the most common ones are being a woman with a family history of the disease. This means that a patient’s family history, along with other medical history details like genetics and other risk factors, need to be collected in order to determine what a patient’s best course of action is to tackle breast cancer.

For example, women with a family history of breast cancer should be advised to undergo a blood test to see if they have a gene that reduces the body’s immune response, making breast cancer more likely to grow and become dangerous by metastisizing. If the gene is present, patients may also be advised to undergo preemptive mastectomies to reduce their cancer risk. However, if the proper tests aren’t recommended then the proper options may not be made available to the patient.

Breast Self-Examination

There have been many public health campaigns urging women to examine themselves for lumps in the breast or unknown discharges. However, the next step that is taken when something concerning is found is to visit a medical professional. Unfortunately, doctors don’t always trust a patient’s knowledge of their body, and if they’re unable to initially find an irregularity during their own exam, they may dismiss the patient’s concerns instead of ordering further tests to ensure that nothing is irregular. In this scenario, the potential to find a lump early and begin treatments is lost because of the doctor’s negligence.

Testing Failures

Unfortunately, even if tests are appropriately ordered, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be read properly. This can occur for a number of reasons. Firstly, doctors are not perfect and may through lack of awareness or attention fail to recognize a cancerous mass.

The other common reason tests may be misread is the way a test is ordered. The primary care doctor may recognize an irregularity, but order a screening mammogram rather than a diagnostic mammogram. In a screening test, the radiologist is performing a general test, rather than having their attention pointed to a specific area from a diagnostic order. This means they’re more likely to miss an irregularity.

Failure To Diagnose Cancer Lawyers In Philadelphia

The failure to properly diagnose breast cancer can be catastrophic for patients and their families. If you or a loved one have suffered because of a failure to properly diagnose breast cancer, you should consult an experienced law firm as soon as possible.

With over 30 years of personal injury law experience, Thistle Law has the expertise to fully evaluate your legal case and get you the payout you deserve. To schedule a meeting for a free consultation, fill out our form.