Man Finds he Has Metastatic Prostate Cancer after 5 Years Of Symptoms and Abnormal Tests by: Joseph Hernandez Prostate cancer is a frightening disease. while not 100% accurate doctors use diagnostics tests to doctors to establish whether a patient has the cancer. but with the prospect of false negatives (a negative test outcome despite the fact that the patient actually has cancer) physicians must follow up and redo tests as appropriate when patient symptoms and screening tests keep showing the possibility of cancer. Not doing so might give rise to a lawsuit for medical malpractice. in one documented lawsuit a man communcated to his family physician that he was having urinary frequency and burning. the doctor began him on antibiotics and refered the patient to a urologist. the urologist performed a cystoscopy which found that the individual had an enlarged prostate. the urologist additionally ordered a PSA blood test which registered a 16.3 (a result above a 4.0 is typically thought to be high). consequently the urologist took a biopsy two months later. the biopsy was read by a pathologist as exhibiting no evidence of cancer. the subsequent year the individual returned to the urologist. on this occasion the PSA blood test came back a 2.9 (ordinarily regarded as in normal range). the urologist diagnosed the patient with BPH (a benign enlargement of the prostate). three months later the individual went to the PCP for fever and nocturia (having to urinate during the night). the physician put him again on antibiotics. a follow up urine culture registered negative. the PCP hence referred the man to the urologist. the urologist ordered a PSA test which registered a 6.4 (again, high). a biopsy analyzes samples of the prostate. Hence, a biopsy may miss the cancer. however, the urologist decided to use the previous year?s biopsy and to not do another one as a follow up. rather, the urologist did nothing to do anything more with regards to the male’s complaints and elevated PSA. a year later the man returned to his family doctor. His symptoms continued to include nocturia. on physical examination the physician noted that the man had a highly enlarged prostate. but, the physician failed to do another a PSA or re-refer the man to a urologist. Regular blood testing 4 months subsequently showed that the person’s PSA was at 7.4 neither physician followed up in any way. the subsequent year the family doctor noted that the PSA level was 9.8 again, no follow up or referral to a urologist. Yet an additional year and the patient continues to have problems with nocturia. on this occasion the PSA was 9.7 no follow up and no referral. five years after the male patient’s initial reports of urinary problems the primary care physician again recorded a appreciably enlarged prostate gland and a PSA that had now risen to 31. the physician at last refered the individual back to the urologist. the urologist confirmed that the patient?s prostate was enlarged and began the man on antibiotics for (two weeksto be followed by an additional PSA test. When the PSA test was repeated two weeks later it recorded a level of 33. a biopsy was then at last done which found cancer in all 6 of the samples. Testing later uncovered that the patient had prostate cancer which had spread to the lymph nodes, the liver and the bone. regardless of a course of hormone therapy and radiation therapy the man died nearly eighteen months subsequent to his diagnosis. the law firm that handled this matter recorded that the lawsuit settled for $1,000,000.

About the AuthorJoseph Hernandez is an attorney accepting cancer malpractice cases. to learn about metastatic prostate cancer and other cancer matters including stage 4 breast cancer visit the websites

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