Person Learns He Has Metastatic Colon Cancer Despite Doctor Knowing

Person Learns He Has Metastatic Colon Cancer Despite Doctor Knowing His Symptoms For Years

There are times when colon cancers bleed. Under some circumstances, the blood may show up in the stool. When the cancer is close to the rectum, the blood could even show up as bright red. Even when the blood cannot be seen, it might nonetheless be possible to determine that the patient is bleeding in other ways. For instance, the loss of blood may show up as anemia. Blood tests might uncover internal blood loss that might be caused by cancer in the colon. The main blood test results to check are the hemoglobin, hematocrit, and Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) levels. Low levels might signify blood loss and iron deficiency anemia. When someone is found to have levels that are below normal levels for these tests physicians typically agree that there should be follow up to discover the explanation for the blood loss, including the possibility of cancer of the colon.

Consider the matter of a 64 year old man whose blood tests exhibited all of the above. The subsequent year, the individual's blood work found a deterioration of the man's condition. Also, a guaiac test found that there was blood in the patient's stool. Without any more testing, the indivual's physician inserted a diagnosis of hemorrhoids into the individual's record. Also, the man's PSA level (a test that is used to screen males for prostate cancer) was a 10.3 (anything above a 4.0 is normally viewed as high and troubling for prostate cancer). The doctor did not put any report in the person's record to indicate an having examined the prostate. The physician failed to tell him about the high PSA levels and did not refer him to a specialist.


Around two years later the person was seen by another doctor. Given the person's age this doctor ordered a barium enema. The result: a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer. The patient passed away from metastatic colon cancer within three years after his diagnosis. The person's family pursued a lawsuit against the doctor who overlooked the patient's abnormally low blood test results and overlooked the presence of blood in the man's stool. The law firm that handled the matter reported a settlement in the amount of $1,250,000

Blood tests are done for a reason. Abnormal test results are indicators that something might be wrong, maybe even seriously wrong with the person and call for follow up. Sometimes follow up means repeating the blood test in just a short amount of time to determine if the levels improve but when the levels deviate enough from normal levels or keep getting worse, physicians ordinarily agree that this increases the need to order appropriate other tests to determine the explanation for those levels. Doctors further normally acknowledge that blood in the stool of an adult individual requires immediate attention to rule out cancer of the colon as the reason. A colonoscopy is usually ordered to look at all the colon and either find or exclude the existence of any tumors. This doctor did not do any of this.

Despite the fact that in general lawsuits that settle do so without any admission of liability by defendants it is not surprising that the law firm that worked on this matter was able to report such a significant settlement.

You can learn more about cases involving colon cancer metastasis and other cancer matters including breast cancer metastasis by visiting the websites