Physician May Be Liable For Medical Malpractice By Not Acting According To Colon Cancer Screening Recommendations
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of deaths resulting from cancer. Each year, approximately 48,000 people will pass away as a result of colon cancer. A large number of these deaths could be prevented with early detection and treatment by standard colon cancer screening in advance of when symptoms occur.
If the cancer is detected while it is still a small polyp while undergoing a regularly scheduled screening procedure, like a colonoscopy, the polyp may be able to be taken out during the colonoscopy. At this point, there is no requirement for the surgical removal of any segment of the colon. When the polyp becomes a tumor and reaches Stage 1 or Stage 2, the tumor and a section of the colon on each side of the tumor is surgical removed. The likelihood that the individual will survive the cancer is over 90% for Stage 1 and 73% for Stage 2.
By the point the cancer gets to Stage 3, surgery is not enough and the patient also needs to undergo chemotherapy. At this stage the chances that the patient will continue to be alive more than 5 years after the diagnosis falls to 53%, depending on such variables as the number of lymph nodes that contain cancer.
By the time the colon cancer metastasizes, treatment might necessitate chemotherapy and possibly other drugs as well as surgery on various organs. If the measurement and quantity of tumors in different organs (like the liver and lungs) are sufficiently few, surgery on these organs may be the primary treatment, then chemotherapy. Sometimes the dimensions or number of tumors in the different organs takes away the option of surgery as a treatment.
If chemotherapy and additional drugs can reduce the number and size of these tumors, surgery might at that point become a viable second form of treatment. Otherwise, chemotherapy and other drugs (possibly through clinical trials) might temporarily stop or limit the continued spread of the cancer. With metastasis the individual's likelihood of outliving the cancer for more than five years following diagnosis drops to around 8%.
As the relative 5-year survival rates show, the time frame wherein the cancer is detected and treated makes a significant difference. If found and treated early, the individual has a high likelihood of surviving the cancer. As detection and treatment is delayed, the chances start shifting from the person so that by the time the colon cancer reaches Stage 3, the percentage is nearly even. And the probability is reduced greatly once the colon cancer reaches Stage 4.
But, all too often physicians do not suggest routine cancer testing to men and women who are asymptomatic. By the time the cancer is ultimately diagnosed - many times due to the fact that the tumor has grown so large that it is leading to blockage, because the individual has inexplicable anemia that is getting progressively worse, or since the person starts to detect other indications - the colon cancer is a Stage 3 or even a Stage 4. The patient now confronts a very different prognosis than if the cancer had been diagnosed early through routine screening tests.
In medical malpractice terms, the individual has sustained a