The very mention of the phrase “colon cancer” tends to raise fear in nearly all of us. It can hence feel very reassuring to have your doctor say that you just have hemorrhoids and there is no need to be concerned about the blood in your stool. Yet this reassurance should not be given until the doctor has eliminated the possibility of colon cancer (and other potentially serious gastrointestinal issues). Otherwise, you may not discover that you have colon cancer before it is too late. If a physician routinely assumes that reports of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding by a patient are from hemorrhoids and it eventually is discovered that the patient had colon cancer all along, that doctor may not have met the standard of care. Under those circimstances, the patient may be able to pursue a lawsuit against that doctor.
In excess of 10 million men and women have hemorrhoids and another 1,000,000 new instances of hemorrhoids will likely arise this year as opposed to a little more than the 100 thousand new incidents of colon cancer that will be diagnosed this year. Further, colon cancers do not always. When they do, the bleeding may be non-consistent. And based on the location of the cancer in the colon, the blood might not actually be seen in the stool. Possibly it is in part as a result of the difference in the volume of instances being detected that a number of physicians basically assume that the presence of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding is because of hemorrhoids. This is playing the odds. A doctor making this diagnosis will be right over 90% of the time. It seems realistic, right? The difficulty, however, is that if the doctor is inaccurate in this diagnosis, the patient may not discover he or she has colon cancer until it has reached a late stage, possibly to where it is no longer treatable.
If colon cancer is detected before it metastasizes outside the colon, the patient’s chances of surviving the cancer are above eighty percent. The 5 year survival rate is a statistical indicator of the percentage of individuals who are still alive at least five years after diagnosis. Treatment protocols for early stage colon cancer generally requires just surgery so as to take out the cancerous growth and adjacent portions of the colon. Based on variables like how advanced the cancer is and the patient’s medical history , how old the person is, and the patient's physical condition, chemotherapy may or may not be required.
For this reason physicians commonly recommend that a colonoscopy ought to be done without delay if someone has blood in the stool or rectal bleeding. A colonoscopy is a method that uses a flexible tube with a camera on the end is used to see the inside of the colon. If growths (polyps or tumors) are discovered, they can be removed (if sufficiently small) or sampled and examined for the presence of cancer (by biopsy). Providing no cancer is detected during the colonoscopy can colon cancer be eliminated as a source of the blood.
But, if the cancer is not diagnosed until it has spread beyond the colon into the lymph nodes, the patient’s five year survival rate will normally be approximately 53%. In addition to surgery to take out the tumor and surrounding areas of the colon treatment for this stage of colon cancer calls for chemotherapy in an effort to get rid of any cancer that may remain in the body. When the cancer spreads to distant organs like the liver, lungs, or brain, the individual's five year survival rate is cut down to near eight percent. Now treatment may entail surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other medications. Treatment may or may not still be helpful the moment the cancer is this advanced. If treatment ceases to be effective, colon cancer is fatal. This year, approximately forty eight thousand individuals will die in the U.S. from colon cancer metastasis.
As a result of diagnosing complaints of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding as resulting from hemorrhoids without completing the appropriate tests to eliminate the possibility of colon cancer, a doctor puts the patient at risk of not learning that the patient colon cancer until it reaches an advanced, possibly untreatable, stage. This might constitute a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and might end in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
In the event that you or a a member of your family were assured by a physician that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding were because of only hemorrhoids, and have since been diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, you ought to consult an attorney without delay. This article is for informational usage only and does not constitute legal (or medical) advice. For any medical concerns you should consult with a doctor. You should not act, or refrain from acting, based upon any information in this article but ought to rather consult with an attorney. A competent attorney with experience in medical malpractice may be able to help you determine if you have a claim for a delay in the diagnosis of the colon cancer. Do not wait to contact a lawyer are there is a time limit in lawsuits like these.
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