Patient In Her Fifties Died From Advanced Colon Cancer After Doctors Did Not Test Her
The critical nature of screening even asymptomatic men and women for colon cancer when they are fifty or older and for testing people who exhibit certain symptoms such as blood in the stool is generally recognized within the medical community. Not doing so may end up in a holdup in the detection of colon cancer which in turn may allow the cancer to metastasize. Below we look at a case regarding a woman over the age of 50 whose doctors did not just fail to screen her when she was asymptomatic they also did not test her even after she started having significant symptoms.
In this case a female saw her family doctor starting when she turned fifty until she was fifty five years old. During that time her medical history included obesity, a hernia as well as hypertension. At no time however did her physician ever do screening for colon cancer.
By the time she turned fifty five she was experienced vomiting as well as diarrhea with blood noticeably visible in her stool. At the emergency room the attending doctor diagnosed her with gastroenteritis. She followed up with her physician a few days afterward who recorded a note of the fact that she at this point had up to three bowel movements per day all of which had a blood. The doctor did not look at that she could have colon cancer and simply decided that she had colitis. As a result the physician recommended that there was no need for any immediate action and that a lower endoscopy may be required if her symptoms did not improve. A year later she again saw this doctor and reported having abdominal issues and as much as sixty pounds of unexplained weight loss. The physician concluded that her weight-loss was the consequence of a change in her diet and regardless that she had a history of blood in her stools that doctor again did not do any tests to rule out colon cancer.
A month later she again ended up at the hospital with complaints of abdominal pain and persistent diarrhea and she was seeing blood every time she vomited. There was also a change in the color of her stool which had become dark brown. Lab analysis of a stool sample showed that there was blood in the stool.. The doctor at the ER realized that she had gastrointestinal bleeding. The physician from the emergency room had her get an x-ray which found a partial blockage of the bowel. At this point she was admitted to the hospital. Additional testing followed. Blood tests then revealed that she might have colon cancer.
At first a gastroenterologist performed an upper G.I. endoscopy and took several biopsies. This gastroenterologist also failed to perform a colonoscopy. It was only late when a covering doctor at the hospital observed that her history was suggestive of cancer and that more testing was needed that a sigmoidoscopy was ultimately done about 2 weeks later. The sigmoidoscopy showed a large obstruction and a follow-up CAT scan revealed a large tumor. When she underwent surgery it was found that her cancer had already metastasized to both her uterus as well as her bladder. Moreover the pathology report found cancer in 13 lymph nodes. She had metastatic.
She started a chemotherapy protocol but after developing an intolerance for the chemotherapy as well as bowel obstructions and even renal failure, the woman died less than a year later. She was merely 58 years old. She was married and had two children both of whom were adults. Her family went forward with a claim against the doctors for the delay in the detection of the cancer. The law firm that represented the family in this matter published a settlement in the case for $950,000 for the family.