subject: Envision Learning You Have Late Stage Cancer And Physician Did Not Inform You About Abnormal Results [print this page] Imagine you are a male and you see your physician for your yearly checkup. Imagine the physician orders blood tests, including a PSA test which is used for the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. This is how to determine whether a man without any symptoms of prostate cancer may actually have it. Imagine the tests came back outside the normal range
However, there continues to be debate amid some doctors over the way to test asymptomatic men for prostate cancer or whether to screen at all. These physicians hold that screening has little, if any, value. If the result of a screening test is abnormal the man ought to be told about the results and either be referred to a specialist or be advised about the option for diagnostic testing, like a biopsy. Once more, however, some physicians also believe that, at least under certain circumstances, a man who is diagnosed with prostate cancer does not have to treat it immediately and just should carefully monitor the cancer.
Should this happen, the cancer becomes incurable before the patient turns symptomatic and is finally diagnosed. However, if a physician noted that the patients prostate was enlarged or there was a nodule on the gland and the PSA test results suggested abnormally high levels of the antigen and the doctor failed to notify the patient of the abnormal results, the man would likely believe that meant there was no need to follow up.
The lengthier the delay in finally performing tests that will diagnose the cancer the greater the risk that when it is eventually diagnosed the cancer will have attained an advanced stage. This will significantly cut down treatment options, will wipe out the chance of a cure, and will reduce the patients life. In situations like these, that patient and his family might have a failure to diagnose medical malpractice lawsuit against the physician.
Screening tests could yield false positives. This means that certain patients with abnormal screening results will not have cancer. Yet performing screening tests for cancer is meaningless if there is no follow up as it gives the patient a false sense of security believing that he has no cancer as the physician tested him but did not inform him that the screening tests showed he might have cancer. Physicians commonly recognize that there is a requirement for follow up if the results of screening tests come back as abnormal.
