subject: Have Symptoms Of Colon Cancer? Your Doctor Ought To Order Appropriate Tests Or Risk A Medical Malpra [print this page] Even the idea that one might have colon cancer tends to bring up fear in most of people. It can therefore feel very reassuring to hear your physician tell you that you simply have hemorrhoids. That there is no need to be concerned about the blood in your stool. However this reassurance ought to not be given until the doctor has eliminated the likelihood of colon cancer (and other potentially serious gastrointestinal problems). Else, you may not find out that you have colon cancer before it is too late. If a doctor routinely assumes that claims of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding by a patient are the result of hemorrhoids and it subsequently is discovered that the patient had colon cancer all along, that doctor may not have met the standard of care and the patient may be able to pursue a lawsuit against that doctor.
In excess of 10 million people have hemorrhoids and another million new incidents of hemorrhoids will likely arise this year. In comparison, a little more than the 100 thousand new cases of colon cancer that will be detected . In addition, colon cancers do not always. If they do, the bleeding may be intermittent. Also subject to where the cancer is in the colon, the blood may not actually be visible in the stool. Perhaps it is simply because of the difference in the quantity of cases being detected that a number of physicians merely suppose that the presence of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding is because of hemorrhoids. This amounts to playing the odds. A physician making this diagnosis will be correct over ninety percent of the time. It sounds sensible, right? The concern, though, is that if the doctor is wrong in this diagnosis, the patient may not discover he or she has colon cancer before it has progressed to an advanced stage, perhaps to where treatment is no longer effective.
When colon cancer is found before it metastasizes outside the colon, the individual's five year survival rate will usually be above 80%. The 5 year survival rate is a statistical indicator of the percentage of patients who are still alive at least five years after diagnosis. Treatment protocols for early stage colon cancer normally requires just surgery so as to remove the cancerous growth and adjacent portions of the colon. Depending on factors such as how advanced the cancer is and the patients medical history (including family medical history), how old the person is, and the patient's physical condition, chemotherapy may or may not be recommended.
For this reason physicians frequently advise that a colonoscopy ought to be done right away if a patient has blood in the stool or rectal bleeding. A colonoscopy is a method whereby a flexible scope with a camera on the end is used to see the inside of the colon. If growths (polyps or tumors) are found, they can be taken out (if sufficiently small) or sampled and tested for the presence of cancer (by biopsy). Only if no cancer is found during the colonoscopy may colon cancer be ruled out as a cause of the blood.
By diagnosing complaints of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding as caused by hemorrhoids while not performing the appropriate tests to eliminate the possibility of colon cancer, a physician puts the patient at risk of not finding out that the patient colon cancer until it progresses to an advanced, possibly untreatable, stage. This may constitute a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may end in a medical malpractice claim.
In the event that you or a a member of your family were assured by a physician that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding were a result of only hemorrhoids, and were subsequently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer, you should consult an attorney immediately. This article is for informational usage only and does not constitute legal (or medical) advice. If you have any medical problems you should seek advice from doctor. You should not act, or refrain from acting, based upon any information in this article but should instead consult with an attorney. A competent lawyer with experience in medical malpractice may be able to help you determine if you have a claim for a delay in the diagnosis of the colon cancer. Do not wait to contact a lawyer are there is a time limit in claims such as these.
