Women have faith that their physicians will know the difference between a significant health issue and something that does not pose any risk to their wellbeing. One area where is this especially true is with breast cancer. Female patients rely on doctors to do every proper tests whether it be a physical examination of the breasts, a mammogram, an aspiration or a biopsy to diagnose any cancer that might be present in the earliest stage achievable. The presence of a lump in a breast raises concern right away. This is where the doctor can do the right thing or the wrong thing. In general, doctors concur that the standard of care calls for the physician to conduct tests to figure out if that lump is cancerous. The reason most doctors acknowledge that this is the proper strategy is due to the fact that it is not possible to make that conclusion based only doing a physical examination (even if taken together with other factors such as the woman’s age and family history).
Approximately some 80% of breast related changes are from benign causes. Additional, the majority of new breast cancer diagnosis happen in women over 50 years of age. It is thus not surprising that some physicians will diagnose a lump found in the breast, especially with a younger patient, as due to a cyst and not due to breast cancer. The statistics are in favor of such a diagnosis.
When it comes to breast cancer early diagnosis is key. It can make the difference between life and death. Diagnosed before it is able to spread, the chances are that with correct treatment the woman will outlive the cancer. Indeed with early detection and treatment the probability of survival is typically above 80% and perhaps as high as 97%. In the event the cancer spreads, though, the odds change drastically.
When breast cancer metastasizes before a diagnosis is made a woman’s chances of outliving the cancer past 5 years is substantially lessened. When the cancer reaches stage 3, her odds are reduced to roughly fifty-four percent. If the cancer reaches stage 4, those odds fall to approximately twenty percent. So, eighty percent or higher with early diagnosis versus fifty-four percent or lower with delayed detection.
It is predicted that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the course of their lifetime. It is the 2nd prevalent cancer in females. In excess of one hundred ninety thousand females are predicted to be newly diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year. Additionally over forty nine thousand women are expected to die of breast cancer this year. Considering the fact that women whose breast cancer is detected and treated in the early stages have a better than eighty percent likelihood of surviving the cancer for over 5 years after diagnosis, a question that should be asked is what percentage of those forty thousand or more women who will pass away of from advanced breast cancer this year might instead continue leading their lives if their cancer had been no delay in diagnosing their cancer.
The problem is that some doctors operate like either that they can figure out whether a mass in a female's breast is cancerous or benign just by manual examination or that a female under 50 with no family history of breast cancer is so unlikely to have breast cancer that it is not necessary to get any diagnostic tests to eliminate cancer if she had a mass in her breast. Since most doctors would agree that discovering a lump in a woman’s breast ought to be followed by diagnostic testing, such as an untrasound, mammogram, aspiration or biopsy
If a physician concludes that a mass in the breast of a female patient as nothing more than a benign fibroid cyst based only on a clinical breast examination, that doctor puts the patient at risk of not knowing she has breast cancer until it metastasizes. The failure to conduct proper diagnostic testing, like an imaging study such as a mammogram or ultrasound, or a sampling, such as a biopsy or aspiration, may constitute a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may bring about a malpractice case.
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