Failure to Diagnose Cancer Lawyer in Chicago

Holding Health Care Providers Accountable for Cancer Misdiagnosis

Diagnosing cancer is a multi-phase process that isn’t always quick.

Because early intervention is so critical to treating cancer in its early stages, however, health care providers must exercise the necessary care, skill, and knowledge to ensure patients who present with potential cancer symptoms are thoroughly evaluated, tested, and accurately diagnosed.

If you believe harm suffered by you or your loved one was caused by a medical provider’s missed diagnosis, misdiagnosis, or failure to timely treat cancer, you may have grounds for legal action.

Failure to diagnose cancer cases are exceedingly complex and are best handled by experienced medical malpractice attorneys like those at Power Rogers.

Power Rogers: A Proven Medical Malpractice Firm

Power Rogers has recovered millions for victims of medical malpractice, including diagnostic errors and failures to treat various forms of cancer. As a U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” rated malpractice firm, we know how to hold negligent physicians, specialists, and medical professionals accountable for negligence.

Our record of success speaks for itself:

• Over $4 billion in compensation recovered for clients; $900 million more than our closest competitor since 2000.
• Record verdicts and settlements, including the largest medical malpractice verdict in Illinois history ($55M), the largest medical malpractice settlement in Cook County in 2016 ($47.6M), and the largest birth injury settlement in Illinois ($35M).
• Named No. 1 Plaintiff’s Law Firm in most dollars earned 11 years in a row by Chicago Lawyer’s Annual Settlement Survey.

Discuss your potential cancer malpractice case and how we can help during a FREE consultation.

When is a Missed Cancer Diagnosis Malpractice?

Determining whether your provider’s actions constituted malpractice will depend on the specific facts involved and how your provider acted. In cancer cases, the central question is:

Did a provider’s deviation from the standard of care result in a failure to timely and accurately diagnose cancer to the detriment of the patient?

Answering this question requires investigation and collaboration with consulting medical experts. Generally, our attorneys assess a provider’s actions to identify if they failed to meet the appropriate standard of care – or, in other words, that the failed to act with the care, skill, and knowledge a reasonably careful provider would be expected to act.

You may have a potential claim if a physician or health care provider misdiagnosed cancer as another less-serious condition, failed to diagnose cancer, or delayed a diagnosis and treatment due to negligence. Malpractice claims can be brought for all types of cancers, including:

• Skin cancer
• Breast cancer
• Lung cancer
• Pancreatic cancer
• Ovarian cancer
• Prostate cancer
• Colon / colorectal cancer
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

In addition to proving a breach of the standard of care, victims must also prove that the substandard caused them harm. Proving a missed diagnosis alone is not necessarily enough to prevail in a malpractice lawsuit if patients were able to obtain treatment for their cancer and recover.

Unfortunately, missed cancer diagnoses often have serious if not fatal consequences, especially with undiagnosed and untreated cancers metastasize or are not discovered until they later stages.

Medical Negligence & Missed Cancer Diagnosis

Substandard care can take many forms. In the context of missed cancer diagnoses, some common examples of negligence may involve:

• Failures to adequately examine a patient, conduct a medical history, and asses potential signs, symptoms, and risk factors of cancer.
• Failures to order necessary diagnostic tests, including blood tests, biopsies, CT scans, MRIs, X-rays, Ultrasounds, or mammograms.
• Failures to correctly read or interpret imaging tests or lab results.
• Failures to follow up with abnormal test results or refer patients to specialists.
• Radiology errors, oncology practice errors, or hospital malpractice.

The job of the plaintiff’s attorney in medical malpractice cases is to convince the judge / jury that the physician’s conduct as it relates to the patient did not meet the accepted standard of care of their profession / specialty, whatever that may be. That is to say that other doctors, given similar information and training, would have been able to properly diagnose and treat the patient’s condition.

If you suspect a doctor’s substandard care may be the underlying cause of a delayed diagnosis, it is wise to gather information about the providers you or your loved one saw, the dates of doctor visits and tests performed, and your medical records. This information can help an attorney assess the merits of your potential claim, and where to begin investigations.

Examples of Our Results

• $47.5 Million recovery for a 4-year-old child who suffered serious injuries after physicians failed to diagnose and treat a bacterial infection. This was the largest medical malpractice settlement in Cook County in 2016 and one of the largest medical malpractice recoveries ever obtained.
• $40 Million recovery for a 12-year-old girl over hospitalists’ failure to diagnose neck abscesses and timely transfer to a children’s hospital, resulting in irreversible neurologic injury. This is the largest settlement for a brain injured-minor in Illinois history.

• $9.8 Million verdict over failure to diagnose a subarachnoid hemorrhage and aneurysm resulting in death. At the time, this was the largest wrongful death verdict in Illinois history
• $6.5 Million recovery for the family of a 40-year-old man who passed away from non-small cell lung cancer. Two and a half years prior, a cavitary lesion in the left lung had been identified on CT as an incidental finding. A year later, another CT was performed which identified “interval resolution” of the cavitary lesion. Plaintiff contended this second interpretation was professionally negligent and that in reality, the lesion was larger and more solid in composition as compared to the year prior.
• $3.5 Million settlement for over a delayed diagnosis of prostate cancer in a 61-year-old male whose colonoscopy identified a possibly palpable nodule. The report was reviewed by the ordering PCP, but no further workup was ordered or obtained, whether by urologic consultation or a PSA testing. Approximately one year later, the PCP did order a PSA and urologic consult, which revealed abnormalities, prostate cancer, and lymph node involvement.

Call Our Chicago Cancer Misdiagnosis Lawyers

Delays in the diagnosis and treatment of cancers can have devastating consequences. When those delays result from inexcusable breaches in the standard of care, the responsible health care providers must be held accountable.

Power Rogers has decades of experience fighting for medical negligence victims, and is available to discuss your potential cancer case and how we can help. Call to request a free case review.