Cancer Malpractice Lawyers

Queens, New York

Prostate Cancer Case

 

This case involves personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff resulting from the Queens medical malpractice misdiagnosis of prostate cancer by the defendant doctor. The 57 year old plaintiff was initially seen by his primary care physician in 2004 for a routine well care visit. A blood test was drawn for a serum Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and the result was 1.6, which was within the normal limits. He then, over the next year, started to develop some obstructive urinary symptoms and he was referred to a urologist. The first urologist he saw did not perform a digital rectal exam. He did do a transrectal ultrasound in the office which revealed an enlarged prostate and some benign appearing calcifications. So, he drew a repeat PSA, and that returned at 2.7. However, the urologist apparently did not review the results of this test and/or recognized the fact that the PSA from the year before was 1.6 so that there was an increase of 1.1 over the short period of just one year. The urologist did not call the patient or pursue any further diagnostic tests at that time. However, he did prescribe an alpha blocker (Flomax) and the plaintiff’s urinary symptoms improved.

 

Over the next 6 months, everything seemed to be fine, until the patient started to develop some low back pain on the side of his spine, which was more prominent on the left hand side and with some radiation down into the thigh and groin area. His primary care physician was not available, so his wife suggested that he contact her primary care physician to get some treatment. That doctor ordered an MRI of the back, which revealed some mild intervertebral disc disease at the L3/L4 level. He prescribed some pain medication and some physical therapy. The MRI did not reveal any evidence of cancer or metastatic disease.

 

The patient then saw a second urologist in Queens, who performed a digital rectal examination and identified an enlarged prostate. The patient's PSA at that time was 31, which was obviously significantly elevated. The visit to this doctor was in December of 2005, which was just about nine months after his previous visit with the first urologist in March of 2005. Therefore, this represented a dramatic and serious increase in the patient's PSA, and was highly indicative of serious and aggressive malignant prostate cancer.

 

The second urologist then suspected that the very high PSA might be related to prostatitis so he ordered a urine culture and he placed the patient on Levaquin, an oral antibiotic, for 4 weeks. He redrew the patient's PSA on January 18th of 2006 and the PSA at that time was 71. Therefore, the PSA went up rather than down, which suggested not acute prostatitis, but very aggressive prostate cancer.

 

The patient's PSA had increased from 1.6 on March 16, 2004 to 2.7 on March 22, 2005 to 31 in December of 2005 and then 71 in January of 2006. The second urologist, rather than obtaining a prostate biopsy or bone scan, renewed the patient's Levaquin prescription and decided to redraw a PSA a month later. The next month the patient's PSA was even higher, at 113. Finally, on March 10th, 2006, a prostate biopsy was performed with revealed greeson's gray 4 + 4 = 8 adenocarcinoma of the prostate from coors on both the right and left sides of the prostate. Therefore, the patient had diffuse high grade adenocarcinoma of the prostate, almost certainly metastatic.

 

A CT scan was performed on March 15th, 2006 and indicated metastasises to the lymph nodes in the abdomen and pelvis. A bone scan on the same day confirmed diffuse and wide spread metastasises. The patient was prescribed Casodex at that time and then proceeded to see further care at a Manhattan cancer center.

 

When the patient presented to the cancer center in the spring of 2006, he began to see a doctor that prescribed Casodex along with Lupron to be given every 3 months. Seven months later, the patient's PSA dropped from 230 down to 9, but then started to creep up once again. The doctor at the cancer center prescribed Ketoconazole, however this medication caused an increase in the patient's liver function tests and then this was discontinued. The patient also started suffering some cranial nerve symptoms. He started to have some problems moving his tongue, which suggested some problem with his 12th cranial nerve. An MRI of the head was performed which revealed some evidence of metastasises around the base of the 12th cranial nerve and then the patient underwent some external beam x-ray therapy - about 10 courses - to the base of his skull and this improved his symptoms significantly.

 

About 3 weeks later he started on some chemotherapy, which has continued until this day, consisting of Taxitir Q3 weeks, Lupron Q3 months, Zomeda Q3 months and Arrythroproitin Q3 weeks. He does not have a central venous catheter port and simply receives his chemotherapy through a peripheral I.V.. In addition, he takes Prednisone, Oxycodone (for occasional pain after his chemotherapy), Fluconazole (for fungus in his mouth) and Decadron (around the time of his chemotherapy). He continues to take Flomax for his obstructive urinary symptoms, which don’t seem to be too bad at this time.

 

The plaintiff was diagnosed with stage IV grade 8 adenocarcinoma of the prostate, which could have been treated a almost a year earlier. The defendant doctor failed to diagnose the plaintiff’s prostate cancer between the time that his PSA changed from 1.6 to 2.7. In addition, a record provided by the plaintiff indicated that an ultrasound of the prostate showed his prostate gland to be only about 22 cc. in volume. A normal prostate gland is about 40 cc. in volume. Therefore a PSA of 2.7 is quite significant for a small gland of 22 cc. volume, since the upper limit of normal of a normal size gland is 40 cc. is 4.0. If you double the 2.7 to make up for the difference in volume then you get 5.4 which is clearly abnormal and warrants a prostate biopsy. The defendant doctors all had a responsibility to order the necessary tests after they were made aware of the plaintiff’s abnormal PSA results. The plaintiff was confined to bed and home for the most part and was substantially disabled for approximately 9 months due to the medical malpractice. The plaintiff remains permanently partially disabled and injured and has needed continuous outpatient treatment for his cancer. He has not been able to return to work or lead a normal life as a result of the mistakes of the defendant doctors.

 

If you or a loved one has had a delay in diagnosing cancer and have questions about the quality of the medical care you received please call Silberstein, Awad & Miklos' cancer malpractice lawyers for answers. Together we will continue our fight against FRIVOLOUS DEFENSES and DECEPTIVE DEFENSES. Offering free consultation to clients in New York and NYC including Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Long Island, and Queens.

 

 

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