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Colon cancers sometimes bleed. Under some circumstances, the blood might be visible in the stool. When the cancer is in the vicinity of the rectum, the blood may even show up as bright red. Even when the blood is not visible, the bleeding may be detectible in other ways. For instance, the loss of blood might manifest as anemia. Blood tests may disclose internal loss of blood that could be the result of a tumor in the colon. Crucial blood test results to evaluate include the hemoglobin, hematocrit, and Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) levels. Levels below the normal range might show blood loss and iron deficiency anemia. When an inidividual is found to have levels that are below normal levels for these tests doctors normally acknowledge that there should be additional testing to determine the explanation for the blood loss, such as the chance of cancer of the colon. Consider the situation of a sixty four year old male patient whose blood tests showed all of the above. The subsequent year, the individual's blood work showed a worsening of the person's condition. Additionally, a guaiac test showed the presence of blood in the patient's stool. Yet, doing no other testing, the man's doctor entered a diagnosis of hemorrhoids into the man's chart. Furthermore, the man's PSA level (a test that is used to screen males for prostate cancer) was a 10.3 (anything above a 4.0 is normally viewed as high and troubling for prostate cancer). The doctor made no entry in the person's chart to indicate an examination of the prostate. The physician failed to tell him about the high PSA levels and failed to refer the person to a specialist. Roughly two years after the person went to a different physician. Due to the individual's age this physician had him undergo a barium enema. The result: a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer. The person died of the spread of the cancer not even 3 years subsequent to his diagnosis. The individual's family filed a case against the physician who dismissed the patient's abnormally low blood test results and overlooked the presence of blood in the man's stool. The law firm that represented the family reported a settlement in the case in the amount of $1,250,000 Blood tests are done for a reason. Abnormal test results suggest that there might be something wrong, possibly even severely wrong with the individual and require follow up. Sometimes follow up includes repeating the blood test within a short period of time to see whether the levels return to normal. Yet if the levels are sufficiently above or below normal levels or keep getting worse, physicians usually acknowledge that this raises the importance of ordering proper additional tests to determine the reason behind those levels. Physicians also generally acknowledge that blood in the stool of an adult person calls for fast attention to rule out cancer of the colon as the cause. A colonoscopy is most frequently ordered to examine all the colon and either find or rule out the existence of any tumors. This physician did none of this. Although settlements usually include no with no admission of liability by defendants it is no surprise that the law firm that handled this matter reported such a considerable settlement.
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Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting medical malpractice cases and wrongful death cases. To learn about advanced colon cancer and other cancer cases including prostatecancer visit the website
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