When treating cancer the goal is always to obtain as early a diagnosis as possible so as to give the cancer patient the best possible odds. However, sometimes an early diagnosis is not possible. Sometimes there are no warning signs that something is wrong until the cancerous tumors have reached…
For many years, radiation therapy has been considered one of the standard treatments given for cancer patients with more than half of all cancer patients receiving some type of radiation therapy. And while radiation does help save many lives, it also presents serious risks for patients and may cause life-threatening…
Oftentimes cancer medical negligence cases in Illinois hinge on a failure to diagnose cancer in a timely manner. However, a recent Chicago wrongful death settlement deals with a different type of medical negligence surrounding a cancer patient’s treatment. In this case a woman with endometrial cancer died as a result…
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed a Cook County medical malpractice jury verdict in favor of the defendant doctors regarding the death of an orthopedic surgeon from an allegedly misdiagnosed malignant nasal polyp. The plaintiff’s appeal had focused on alleged violations of the Dead Man’s Act. Agins v. Otolaryngology Group, Ltd.,…
A Cook County resident filed a medical negligence lawsuit against a neurosurgeon and neurologist who allegedly failed to correctly diagnose a cancerous growth on the man’s spine. The delay in the diagnosis allowed the tumor to grow larger, which resulted in partial paralysis and permanent neurological deficits. This particular Chicago…
A woman brought an Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit against her gynecologist for a failure to diagnose her breast cancer in a timely manner. The woman had been seeing the defendant gynecologist regularly since the mid-1980s, but the diagnosis was not made until May 2000, at which point the woman…
Two years ago The New York Times published an article dealing with chemo brain, a type of mental fog experienced by cancer patients. Recent research has indicated that this phenomenon might be more widespread than previously believed. While memory and concentration problems are common among chemotherapy patients, for most these…
A $2 million settlement was awarded to the family of a 58 year-old man who died when his lung cancer went undiagnosed. The Illinois wrongful death lawsuit was filed against the decedent’s family practice physician and an emergency medicine physician who provided treatment at Alexian Brothers Medical Center. The Cook…
A new DNA test has been developed by Qiagen to identify the human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus found to be associated with cervical cancer. Scientists state that this new test is an improvement on current testing methods and might eventually replace the Pap smear test as a way to diagnose…
Recent studies have exposed inconsistent and inaccurate results of breast tissues tested for cancer, which has led to the misdiagnosis of cancer. The most troubling aspect is that thousands of women may have failed to receive the proper treatment because of errors in two laboratory tests. One of these laboratory…