A breast cancer misdiagnosis means an incorrect diagnosis or a delayed diagnosis that worsened your outcome, whether due to errors in exams, testing, or interpretation. These errors can lead to breast cancer malpractice claims.
Almost one in every eight American women will develop invasive breast cancer at some point in their lives. Early diagnosis of this type of cancer leads to better survival rates: 92% of females with breast cancer were still alive after five years, and those with early detection had a 99% survival rate.
Sadly, some women won't find out they have breast cancer until long after they should. According to one medical website, 59.1% percent of all medical malpractice cases involving breast cancer patients are related to alleged delays in diagnosis.
Misdiagnosis -- whether diagnosing an issue that doesn't exist or failing to diagnose breast cancer -- is a form of medical malpractice, and doctors who fail to diagnose breast cancer can be liable.
Misdiagnosis and Negligence
If you think a doctor failed to diagnose you with breast cancer or gave you an erroneous diagnosis, you may have a valid medical malpractice claim. And most medical malpractice claims allege a form of negligence on the part of a doctor or other medical provider.
Common claims in breast cancer misdiagnosis lawsuits involve the following:
- Failure to detect: Healthcare providers fail to detect signs or symptoms of breast cancer, such as lumps, during physical examinations or fail to follow up on a patient’s symptoms.
- Delays in testing: Medical professionals don’t order diagnostic tests after detecting physical abnormalities.
- Diagnostic Errors: Doctors, radiologists, or pathologists fail to read mammograms or biopsy test results correctly, which can lead to a missed diagnosis of breast cancer or a false positive diagnosis and unwarranted aggressive treatment.
To prove medical negligence in a medical malpractice lawsuit, you would need to demonstrate four essential elements:
- Duty: That the doctor owed you a duty of care, generally present in any doctor-patient relationship;
- Breach: That the doctor breached this duty by misdiagnosing your breast cancer when a reasonably competent doctor would not have;
- Causation: That the doctor's negligence (misdiagnosis) -- and not some other factor -- caused your harm, which often occurs when breast cancer is not detected in its earliest stages;
- Damages: That the harm you suffered due to the misdiagnosis is quantifiable and compensable to some degree.
Diagnosis and Complications
When alleging a duty of care or a breach of that duty, the doctor will be judged against a standard of care expected of a reasonably prudent doctor under similar circumstances. So if your doctor did exactly what any other competent doctor would have done in the same scenario, it will be difficult to prove malpractice. It will be important to have records from your primary care doctors as well as those doctors providing second opinions.
And medical malpractice claims can be especially complicated, requiring detailed medical records and patient data, as well as experts to testify to both your injuries and whether your doctor's misdiagnosis was out of the norm for similar medical professionals.
Filing a Timely Claim
It is crucial to know about the statute of limitations for personal injury claims in your state. In most states, the deadline to file a medical malpractice lawsuit is one to three years from the date you discovered the malpractice.
If you're considering filing a medical malpractice claim based on a breast cancer misdiagnosis, talk to an experienced medical malpractice attorney for legal advice. They can guide you through the process and ensure that you meet filing deadlines. They can also recover damages which may include economic damages such as past and future medical expenses, lost wages and lost future earnings, and non-economic damages such as pain and suffering.
Related Resources:
- Can You Sue a Doctor for Emotional Distress? (FindLaw's Injured)
- Find Medical Malpractice Lawyers Near You (FindLaw's Lawyer Directory)
- Top 5 Medical Malpractice Questions (FindLaw's Injured)
- Should I Sue for Medical Malpractice? (FindLaw's Injured)
