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. 

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.