Survivors Of Woman Who Passed Away Of Advanced Colon Cancer After Diagnosis Delay Receive Settlement

The need for screening even asymptomatic men and women for colon cancer when they are 50 or older and for testing men and women who display certain symptoms such as blood in the stool is generally recognized within the medical community. A failure to do so may lead to a delay in the diagnosis of colon cancer which in turn might allow the cancer to metastasize. Below we study a case involving a woman over the age of 50 whose doctors not only failed to screen her at the point she was asymptomatic they also did not test her when she started having significant symptoms.

Consider a lawsuit that arose from the following situation: a female treated with a primary care physician starting when she turned fifty until she was fifty five years old. In that period of time her medical history included obesity, a hernia as well as hypertension. Her doctor however never performed or recommended that she undergo screening for colon cancer.She began having various symptoms : diarrhea, vomiting and blood in her stools when she was 55 years old She took herself to the ER where a doctor told her that she had gastroenteritis. Within a week's time she went to her physician for follw up. The doctor noted that she complained of having as many as three bowel movements a day. The physician also noted that she continued to have blood in her stools. The doctor did not consider that she might have colon cancer and simply came to the conclusion that she had colitis. Consequently the physician recommended that there was no need for any immediate action and that a lower endoscopy may be needed if her symptoms did not resolve. A year afterwards she again saw this medical doctor and reported having abdominal issues and as much as sixty pounds of unexplained weight loss. The doctor concluded that her weight-loss was the result of a change in her diet and regardless that she had a background of blood in her stools that physician still did not order or perform any tests to rule out colon cancer.

A month later she once more went to the hospital with complaints of pain in her abdomen and ongoing diarrhea and she was seeing blood present every time she vomited. Her stool was now a dark brown color and testing revealed blood present in the stool. The physician at the emergency room diagnosed her as having a gastrointestinal bleeding. The physician from the emergency room had her get an x-ray which found a partial blockage of the bowel. Following this finding the doctor admitted her to the hospital. Additional testing followed. Blood tests then disclosed that she might have colon cancer.At first a gastroenterologist did an upper G.I. endoscopy and obtained several biopsies. This gastroenterologist also failed to perform a colonoscopy. It was only late when a covering physician at the hospital observed that her history was suggestive of cancer and that more testing was needed that a sigmoidoscopy was ultimately performed about two weeks later. The sigmoidoscopy exposed a large obstruction and a follow-up CAT scan recorded a large tumor. When she underwent surgery it was found that her cancer had already metastasized to both her uterus as well as her bladder. Moreover the pathology report indicated cancer in thirteen lymph nodes. She had metastatic.

She began treatment with chemotherapy and after experiencing intolerance for the chemotherapy as well as bowel obstructions and even renal failure, she died less than a year later. She was merely 58 years old. She was survived by her husband and 2 adult children. Her husband and children pursued a lawsuit against the physicians for the delay in the diagnosis of the cancer. The law firm that handled this lawsuit documented that they were able to obtain a settlement in the case for just under one million dollars for the family.

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