Cancer Patient Misdiagnosed with Asthma

When it comes to health, consumers generally trust that doctors diagnose and treat them accurately.  When a doctor tells you that you've got asthma, something simple, you tend to believe it.  Why would you suspect it to be more?

One woman in Brooklyn had a persistent cough.  Her doctor treated her for over a year for asthma.  However, it was later discovered that she really had lung cancer.  This Brooklyn woman was devastated to learn that her doctor misdiagnosed her with a common ailment instead of a life threatening disease.  

It doesn't seem very fair, but this same woman is the primary caregiver to a child with special needs.  She may not live long enough to see her daughter grow up.  And this is due in part to the negligence of the doctor.  Because of this negligence, a NY court awarded her $625,000 in compensation although her attorneys believe she would have received more had she filed in a court out of state. 

How Doctors' Errors Could Endanger Your Health

Consumers have a reasonable belief that the doctor treating them can competently take their symptoms and diagnose them with an ailment.  They also reasonably believe that a doctor knows how to care for their conditions.  When it comes to light that a doctor may have misdiagnosed a patient, the community is shocked and confidence in that doctor, that hospital, and the medical profession, wanes. 

Yearly, there are thousands of incidents which are generally attributed to doctor negligence. This includes misdiagnosis, surgical errors, treatment errors, and more.  These incidents could severely endanger a patient's health and cause injury, including:

• allergic reactions
• interior organ damage
• tissue damage
• paralysis
• amputation
• death

Depending upon the error, a patient could be at serious risk for a life altering event, including death.  In this case, it's extremely likely that the amount awarded was extremely low considering her limited time left because of the failure to adequately treat her cancer.  If you have similarly experienced negative consequences as the result of a surgeon's error or misdiagnosis, you should call a skilled personal injury attorney for help. 

FDA Warns Doctors of Counterfeit Drugs that May Injure Consumers

Plastic surgery used to be a luxury good that only the wealthy and famous could afford.  But now it is quite affordable and widely available from a variety of different sources.  While the increase of manufacturers and distributors passes along a cost benefit to consumers, sometimes there is a significant risk of injury that passes along with it.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been busy warning doctors across the United States that they could have received fake or ineffective Botox from a Canadian supplier, Canada Drugs. In their letter to Canada Drugs here, the FDA has identified Botox, Levitra, Accutane, and Viagra which could be fake or ineffective.  In response, the FDA seized $10.5 million of fake drugs and ordered the distributor to shut down over 4,000 pharmaceutical websites online that are being marketed to American buyers.  The FDA is operating under a fear that consumers may experience significant injury as a result of their exposure to fake or counterfeit drugs.

The Risk to Consumers

The FDA identified many American doctors who might have received these potentially counterfeit drugs.  Among them are prominent Beverly Hills doctors as well as other practitioners across America.  These doctors are strongly advised to discontinue use of these drugs in order to prevent consumer injury.  And consumers fearing their doctors may be using counterfeit products are encouraged to contact the FDA's Department of Criminal Investigations.

Consumers using counterfeit drugs could be at risk for injury in a number of ways. This could include:

• ineffective
• toxic ingredients
• incorrect dosage amounts
• incorrect ingredients
• allergic reactions
• unexpected side effects
• deadly side effects

Consumers are at significant risk for injury if they are prescribed counterfeit drugs.  The same is true with instances for fake plastic surgery treatments like Botox.  Consumers could experience a myriad of complications and injuries as a result of fake Botox. 

If You Have Been Injured

If you have been injured by your doctor's negligence or carelessness, you may be entitled to compensation for these injuries.  These alleged counterfeit drugs could injure you and damage your health in a number of ways, including death.  To determine whether or not you have a case, please call a skilled personal injury and product liability attorney.  

Doctor Source of Staph Infection that Risks 5 Patients' Lives

Patients go to the hospital to get well, not to get sicker.  But unfortunately, a heart surgeon was recently identified as the source of staph infections at Cedars Sanai.  The complex sutures required during heart surgery are thought to be behind tiny tears to the surgeon's gloves, facilitating the spread of staph infection to patients during surgery.

As a hospital with one of the lowest rates of reported hospital infections, this outbreak was a surprise to some.  Not to Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit engaged in healthcare monitoring. They rated the hospital a C- for these sorts of cleanliness issues.  But what could the danger be if patients contract a staph infection while in the hospital?

The Dangers of Staph Infection

A staph infection begins with a cut and the Staphylococcus bacteria infecting that cut.  Usually treated with antibiotics,  a staph infection is generally more an annoyance.  But in patients such as those who received heart surgery, a staph infection could be extremely dangerous. 

The dangers that heart patients face are quite serious.  Heart patients could potentially develop an inflammation of the heart valves, named endocarditis.  This could cause heart failure and even death.

To clean this infection, patients generally are treated to an aggressive course of antibiotics over 4 to 6 weeks.  If this doesn't work, opening up the patient to clean the infected area is a possibility. In the most severe cases, replacement of the infected heart valve is necessary.  In this instance, 4 of the 5 patients needed second valve replacement surgeries.  

Examining the Standards in Hospital Care

Over 99,000 Americans die of hospital contracted infections every year.  States such as California have begun to require that hospitals report certain infections to the state's health department in hopes that this will encourage cleaner conditions. 

This staph outbreak calls to mind the lack of cohesive standards in hospital care.  When a surgeon has a skin infection, there is no guideline or rule that says they should sit this one out, how many gloves to wear to prevent transmission of infections, or how many times to change said gloves.  Surgeons and hospital administrators are literally flying blind in this instance. 

When patients develop serious infections as a result of their hospital care, their entire life can change in an instant.  This could require additional surgeries and put their lives at risk.  Patients  are encouraged to call a skilled personal injury and medical malpractice attorney to discuss how they might be able to gain compensation for these life threatening infections.  

Can a Breath Test Predict Cancer?

Would you trust your diagnosis to a breath test?  Scientists and doctors at a hospital in Bari, Italy, are betting that soon you'll be able to diagnose problems ranging from cancer to TB and even diabetes based on only a breath test.  Comparing the breaths of patients with bowel cancer at this hospital, scientists received a 76% accuracy, according to the British Journal of Surgery.  But can such a test really be depended on?

Breath Tests Dependent Upon Chemical Odors

The science of these breath tests is that a machine will be able to detect chemical odors of volatile chemicals that aren't supposed to be present in healthy people.  In the case of bowel cancer, this departs from the current science, which depends upon a fecal test to diagnose bowel cancer.  

The sample size compared was relatively small, and honestly too small to accurately determine whether this test wouldn't be completely debunked with a larger sample size.  But researchers compared 27 patients with bowel cancer with 41 control patients who were declared healthy. 

But even analytic chemistry researchers such as Dr. Claire Turner at the Open University are questioning the science.  Pointing out potential flaws in the test, Dr. Turner stated these breath tests could be affected by food particles, air in the hospital or even other illnesses.  

Are You Confident that Experimental Tools Could Accurately Predict Your Illnesses

If it were me, I'd be fearful to be an early guinea pig in this testing scenario.  What if the test predicted you had cancer and after invasive rounds of medicine, chemotherapy, or surgical procedures, you realized your cancer was not actually a cancer, nor was it malignant.  Given the increasing number of cases where patients' "cancer" was really something else, this could be a valid concern.  To date, there's no foolproof method for determining that masses or other suspicious shadows on xrays are truly cancer. As science and medicine pushes the envelope, patients are usually the ones who are left to bear the brunt of progress.  

Until the science is perfected, I certainly wouldn't rely on these kinds of findings. And I would hope that others would seek out multiple opinions following tests such as the breath test.  But if you pursue treatment on a faulty diagnostic device and are injured, you can always call a skilled personal injury and medical malpractice attorney.  You'll always have a clear advocate on your side when you call an attorney regarding your injuries.

Are American Women Overdiagnosed, Overtreated for Cancer?

According to the American Cancer Society, more than a million Americans are diagnosed with cancer every year.  Patients typically undergo a variety of treatments including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, laser targeted therapy, and even stem cell transplants.  What if all of that treatment and all of the fear was for nothing?  What if your cancer diagnosis didn't require treatment?  What if doctors were detecting something else that didn't require invasive treatments?

According to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, up to 1/3 of breast cancers, or an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 cases per year don't require treatment.  A recent study of the effectiveness of mammogram screening has suggested that not only are mammograms ineffective at catching many cancers, but some of these "cancers" are not only not malignant but also not a health threat. 

Are Doctors to Blame for Overdiagnosing or Overtreating?

The study concludes that mammograms are an imperfect tool that doctors utilize in order to catch cancer early enough to improve women's lives and extend their chances for survival.  The problem, according to researchers, is that these can sometimes have false alarms, or catch other items that pose no threat of death.  In the 1.4 estimated new cases of breast cancer per year, could doctors be overdiagnosing?

Tracking statistical data from 1976 to 2008, researchers made the startling discovery that while mammograms doubled the amount of early cases detected, the amount of late stage cancers detected dropped by 8%, suggesting misdiagnosis. If mammograms were an effective tool, researchers claim that there should be a ratio that suggests for every one new case detected, there is one fewer late stage case detected.

Cancer Treatment Can Threaten a Healthy Person's Health

Cancer treatments often involve radiation, injections, surgeries, and other life altering procedures.  Should a person with no need for cancer treatment undergo these procedures, they could face the following:

• pain
• nausea, vomiting
• lymphedemia, or the build up of lymph fluids causing swelling
• anemia
• fatigue
• infections
• secondary cancers caused by the cancer treatment itself
• altered mental state, confusion

Misdiagnosis could be a life altering experience for you, one which could significantly harm your health.  If you have suffered as a result of a doctor's misdiagnosis, you are encouraged to seek the medical help that you need.  You should also seek the help of a talented personal injury attorney who can fight for your rights and gain you the compensation you deserve.