New Jersey Medical Malpractice Lawyers Hold Medical Providers Responsible for Cancer Misdiagnosis

Cancer can be effectively managed through various medical treatments, but a person cannot begin treatment until he or she is accurately diagnosed by a medical professional. A delay in treatment brought on by a doctor’s mistake can cause a treatable tumor to become untreatable cancer.

A physician may be liable if they failed to diagnose your cancer or heart attack. The doctor’s failure to make a timely diagnosis can be considered negligent if they did not avail themselves of early stage cancer screenings.
If you’ve been misdiagnosed or if your doctor failed to properly monitor your cancer, you need a medical malpractice lawyer who is dedicated to helping you pursue justice and securing you the compensation you deserve.

What Are the Most Commonly Misdiagnosed Types of Cancer?

According to a team of American, Canadian, and Chinese researchers, upwards of 12 percent of cancer patients are initially misdiagnosed. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that some types of cancer are misdiagnosed up to 44 percent of the time. The types of cancer that are misdiagnosed include:

• Breast cancer
• Throat cancer
• Lung cancer
• Mouth cancer
• Colorectal or colon cancer
• Cervical cancer
• Skin cancer or melanoma
• Brain cancer
• Liver cancer
• Endometrial cancer
• Leukemia or soft tissue cancer
• Lymphoma, including Hodgkin’s lymphoma
• Sarcoma

A doctor should be able to recognize the warning signs of cancer so that they can accurately diagnose the disease at an early stage. A cancer diagnosis must be made in a timely manner because you may have only a small window of time in which to treat cancer before it spreads. Early diagnosis is the key to your best chances of beating cancer. Therefore it is imperative that your doctor recognizes the early warning signs of cancer, which can include lumps, sores that don’t heal, bleeding, indigestion, and chronic hoarseness.

“Pre-cancer” screenings, such as mammograms, colonoscopies, pap smears, chest X-rays, and prostate-specific antigen tests, should be administered by doctors. These early tests can help doctors avoid misdiagnoses. If your doctor fails to properly screen you for cancer, it could result in a misdiagnosis.
Other common causes of misdiagnosis include:

• The doctor overlooked suspicious masses that were visible on x-rays
• The doctor misread pathology slides and failed to notice abnormal cells
• The doctor wrongly determined that a cancerous tumor was benign
• The physician misinterpreted calcifications on a mammogram
• The doctor ignored the patient’s medical history
• The physician failed to consult with an oncologist who specializes in cancer
• The doctor failed to offer a differential diagnosis, which is a systematic method of diagnosing a disease by listing all of the potential diseases suggested by the patient’s symptoms and then distinguishing the patient’s likely disease
• The doctor was overworked by the hospital, resulting in little time to properly evaluate and diagnose your condition

Misdiagnosis or a Delayed Diagnosis of Cancer Can Be Deadly, so Speak with the NJ Medical Malpractice Lawyers at Lombardi and Lombardi, P.A.

Medical malpractice law in New Jersey is extremely complicated. If you’ve been victimized by a medical misdiagnosis, you are going to need plenty of help. The effects of failure to diagnose cancer or misdiagnosis of cancer can be devastating. A misdiagnosis can result in intrusive testing, expensive and dangerous surgery, unnecessary and invasive treatment, loss of a body part or organ, and, in the worst cases, wrongful death.

The NJ cancer misdiagnosis lawyers at Lombardi and Lombardi, P.A., can help you seek compensation for your injuries or loss. Our attorneys understand the damage that can be done to an individual and a family when a physician fails to properly diagnose cancer. We’ve helped countless clients throughout New Jersey, including Ocean County, Monmouth County, and Middlesex County. Let us conduct a thorough investigation of what happened in your case so that we can hold the liable parties accountable. You can call us at 732-906-1500 or contact us online.