Breast Cancer Misdiagnosis Lawyers

       Breast cancer misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor or health care provider does not detect, order necessary testing to follow up on breast cancer or, as is often the case in breast cancer malpractice cases, the radiologist misreads a mammogram. Our breast cancer misdiagnosis lawyers represent victims and their families seeking compensation for misdiagnosis or medical mistake.

       The consequences of breast cancer misdiagnosis can be serious and often fatal because early detection is often a breast cancer patient's best hope of defeating the disease. Detection of cancer at its later stages increases the risk of death significantly for many types of cancer. The difference between Stage I and Stage IV drops survival rates by over 80%, according to some studies. Obviously, breast cancer survival rates are strongly correlated with early detection and treatment. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women today (after lung cancer), but early detection can stop the cancer in its tracks. When breast cancer is detected early and confined to the breast the five-year survival rate approaches 100%.
       How does breast cancer get misdiagnosed? It often starts with a radiologist misreading a mammogram. A mammogram is the first line of defense in screening for breast cancer. Incredibly, a mammogram has a false-negative - that is, the failure to detect a malignant cancer - rate of at least 10%. Why is this? The mammogram-reading skills of general radiologists vary enormously, according to a study. In the study, 75% of radiologists detected, on average, 70 percent of the breast cancers that were visible on 100 mammograms. Most doctors are doing their job very well.
        But here is the incredible part: scores ranged from a high of 98 percent to a low of 8 percent. In other words, a smaller number of radiologists do not appear to be particularly skilled at diagnosing breast cancer. Reading mammograms is not easy because the patients are healthy - there are rarely symptoms because healthy women get mammograms as screenings. Most mammograms are given to healthy women who do not have cancer. But if you are not good at looking at a mammogram, give the results to a radiologist that can.

      For breast biopsy errors, the misdiagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ is common malpractice claim.

              In 2004 (the most recent statistics we have), breast cancer deaths in women totaled 40,954 out of the186,000 women diagnosed. Ten percent of American women will contract breast cancer in the United States. Some of these breast cancer deaths could have been avoided if a doctor had properly diagnosed the patient. If you believe you may have a breast cancer medical malpractice case, call our lawyers at 1-800-553-8082 or click here for a free online consultation.

Related Links:

Cancer Misdiagnosis Verdicts in Maryland (a sampling of verdicts in the last few years in cancer misdiagnosis cases)

Exercise Decreases the Risk of Breast Cancer (new study)

Kevin M.D. (post on breast cancer malpractice claims and the standard of care)
Breast Cancer Support (support group for victims of breast cancer)