Family Of Female Patient Who Died Of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Initiate Lawsuit Against Physician

Though a colonoscopy is normally recommended as a screening tool for colorectal cancer

for individuals who are fifty years old and older, physicians usually acknowledge that a patients complaints of rectal bleeding merit performing a colonoscopy even if the patient is younger than fifty. Even if a colonoscopy or a sigmoidoscopy is performed, though, if the examination is not complete and adequate visualization was not achieved, physicians normally suggestedthat the procedure ought to be done again. Below we examine a wrongful death case which alleged that both a family practicioner and a gastroenterologist failed to follow these practices.

In this example, a woman complained to her physician that she was having constipation and noticed rectal bleeding during a five week interval. This went on for one more month. She was forty six years old at the time. Her physician scheduled her for a sigmoidoscopy. She was seen the next month by a gastroenterologist. The gastroenterologist recorded that the referral was because of bleeding and constipation. The gastroenterologsit could have performed a full colonoscopy but chose to only do a sigmoidoscopy as requested by the primary care physician. A sigmoidoscopy limits the length of the colon that can be inspected to only the first forty cm from the anus. Here, even that area was, according to the gastroenterologist's own notes, not well visualized. The gastroenterologist did not suggest that the test be repeated so as to properly examine the sigmoid.

The woman went back to her physician for 2 yearly physicals after that and each time told him that she kept to have issues with constipation. During this time the physician spoke with the patient's daughter and while indicating he would give some thought to a colonoscopy sometime later on he suggested that the patient had irritable bowel syndrome and just needed to eat more fiber. Later on he instructed the patient to begin taking lactulose. Finally, when a physical examination revealed abdominal tenderness and a structure suspicious for stool in the colon, the physician prescribed testing her thyroid and finally referred her for a colonoscopy.

Around two weeks afterward, the woman had to go to the emergency room when she developed pain and vomiting as she was prepping for a colonoscopy. The emergency room physician determined that she had a distended abdomen and hyperactive bowel sounds. She also had abdominal tenderness, mainly on the lower left. Because of these symptoms the emergency room physician ordered a CT scan. The scan highlighted a mass in the sigmoid with metastasis. After 2 weeks, she had surgery to remove the 4.2 cm mass. The surgeon found that her cancer had spread throughout a variety of organs. She began chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer. The woman did not survive. She passed away a bit over four months following her surgery.

The womans family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the family doctor and the gastroenterologist. The law firm that represented the family was able to resolve the lawsuit with a settlement in the amount of $2.0 million on behalf of the family. The law restricts the time you have to pursue a wrongful death claim so if a family member died of metastatic cancer and you believe they were the victim of medical malpractice you ought to speak to an attorney right away to establish if you have a valid case.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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