Cancer misdiagnoses, such as breast cancer, lung cancer, or colon cancer, can have severe consequences, including delayed or inappropriate treatment, reduced survival rates, increased medical costs, and even wrongful death.
Therefore, patients and healthcare providers must be vigilant to ensure accurate diagnosis and treatment planning.
If you or a loved one has been harmed by the result of a missed diagnosis or wrong diagnosis, you might have a medical malpractice lawsuit. Talk to an experienced Scranton medical malpractice attorney at Munley Law today.
How Does Cancer Misdiagnosis in Scranton Happen?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cancer has been one of the top two leading causes of death in Americans for the last 75 years. According to a report released by the American Cancer Society, approximately 2 million new cases were diagnosed in 2022 alone — making cancer a significant health concern across the nation.
Given the prevalence of cancer, it’s not surprising that misdiagnosis occurs frequently. A study released by Johns Hopkins Hospital, after reviewing tissue samples from 6,000 cancer patients, found that one out of every 71 cases was misdiagnosed, and up to one out of five cancer cases were misclassified and further, of all the medical misdiagnoses with the most severe consequences, including death, cancer accounted for nearly a full 40% of all medical misdiagnoses.
A cancer misdiagnosis can have serious, lasting, and possibly life-threatening repercussions for the patient. There can be several reasons this type of medical negligence can happen, including:
- Human Error: For example, pathologists may incorrectly interpret biopsy results, leading to a wrong diagnosis, or radiologists might misread imaging scans, such as X-rays, MRIs, or CT scans, and either miss signs of cancer or mistakenly identify non-cancerous conditions as cancerous.
- Inadequate Communication: Poor communication between doctors and patients can lead to misunderstandings about the patient’s symptoms and medical history. In addition, a lack of proper communication between different departments or specialists can result in incomplete or incorrect information being used for diagnosis.
- Incomplete Medical History: If a doctor cannot access a patient’s full medical history, they might miss significant risk factors or symptoms that could lead to an accurate diagnosis.
- Symptoms Overlap: Many cancers have symptoms that overlap with other less serious conditions, making it easy for doctors to misdiagnose them as something else.
- Inadequate Testing: Sometimes, doctors may not order the necessary tests due to cost considerations, lack of resources, or oversight. Diagnostic tests themselves can sometimes produce inaccurate results, leading to a misdiagnosis.
- Failure to Follow Up: If doctors do not follow up on abnormal test results or patients’ ongoing symptoms, they might miss the opportunity to correct an initial misdiagnosis.
- Biased Diagnosis: Doctors may have biases based on patients’ age, gender, or other demographics, which can influence their diagnostic decisions and lead to misdiagnosis.
When Is Misdiagnosis Malpractice in Scranton?
When a healthcare provider fails to diagnose or misdiagnose cancer, it isn’t always legally considered medical malpractice. To establish a case of malpractice, you must demonstrate several things, including:
- Doctor-Patient Relationship: You and the physician must have a clear, established relationship.
- Negligence in Duty: You must prove that the doctor was negligent in their responsibilities. For instance, if you reported a lump under your arm and the doctor neglected to perform a biopsy to check for cancer, this could be considered negligence.
- Injury Caused by Negligence: You must show that the doctor’s negligence directly harmed you. Continuing the example, if the untreated lump later turned out to be cancerous and spread, this harm would need to be linked to the doctor’s failure to act.
- Accepted Standard of Care: You must demonstrate that a competent doctor in the same specialty would not have made the same error. This involves proving one of two things:
- The correct diagnosis was not considered when it should have been: The doctor failed to conduct appropriate tests or seek specialist opinions that would have confirmed the diagnosis.
Your claim will depend upon proving that the harm to you or your loved one resulted from medical malpractice.
This is why talking to an experienced medical misdiagnosis attorney about your case is so important. For more than 60 years, the Pennsylvania cancer misdiagnosis lawyers at Munley Law Firm have been trusted attorneys for personal injury victims in Scranton, and NEPA. Call an expert medical malpractice attorney at Munley Law today for your free initial consultation. You owe us nothing until we win.
Types of Scranton Misdiagnosis Cases
False Cancer Diagnosis
A false cancer diagnosis means that a doctor or other healthcare professional tells a patient who does not have cancer that they do. This type of medical misdiagnosis can lead to unpleasant, painful, costly, and unnecessary cancer treatments.
Patients suffer the sickness, pain, recovery, stress, and financial burden of a cancer diagnosis unnecessarily.
Missed Diagnosis
A missed diagnosis happens when a healthcare provider fails to recognize the presence of cancer altogether. Early detection of most types of cancers is essential to the well-being, even survival, of the patient. This type of misdiagnosis can lead to your cancer progressing to the point where it can no longer be treatable.
Delayed Cancer Diagnosis
A delayed diagnosis occurs when a medical professional does not recognize and diagnose cancer due to misinterpreting tests or imaging or fails to listen to the patient when they describe their symptoms and refuses to order the necessary tests.
A delayed diagnosis can be as serious as a missed diagnosis of cancer because the disease can progress very quickly to advanced stages of disease. Any delay can have serious, even deadly, consequences.
A Scranton Medical Malpractice Lawyer Can Help
Cancer misdiagnosis can lead to unnecessary pain, suffering, and, in severe cases, death. If you or a loved one has suffered from a cancer misdiagnosis by a Scranton healthcare provider, call the experienced cancer misdiagnosis attorneys at Munley Law today for your free consultation.
You might be entitled to financial compensation for your medical malpractice case.
Damages for Scranton Patients and Families
Economic Damages
- Medical Expenses: This includes all costs related to medical treatment, such as hospital bills, surgeries, medications, and any future medical care that may be needed due to the misdiagnosis.
- Lost Wages: Compensation for the income lost due to the inability to work during recovery and any future earning potential lost due to long-term health effects.
- Out-of-pocket expenses include travel to medical appointments, medical devices, and other expenses directly related to the misdiagnosis.
Non-Economic Damages
- Pain and Suffering: Compensation for the physical pain and emotional distress caused by the misdiagnosis or undergoing unnecessary medical treatments.
- Loss of Consortium: Compensation for the impact on the relationship between the patient and their spouse, including loss of companionship and support.
- Mental Anguish: Damages for the psychological impact of the misdiagnosis, such as anxiety, depression, and emotional distress.
- Wrongful Death: If you have lost a loved one due to a cancer misdiagnosis, you might be entitled to file a wrongful death suit.
Call Our Cancer Misdiagnosis Attorneys Today
Call Our Cancer Misdiagnosis Attorneys TodayIf you or a loved one has suffered as a result of a cancer misdiagnosis in Scranton, call the cancer misdiagnosis lawyers at Munley Law. We are experts in fighting medical malpractice cases. Call us today for your free initial consultation. You owe us nothing until we win your medical malpractice claim.
Munley Law Personal Injury Attorneys
227 Penn Ave.
Scranton, PA 18503
(570)865-4699
