Patient: "Doctor, I am spotting blood in my stool."

Physician: "Don’t worry about it, you in all likelihood merely have hemorrhoids."

Tragically, some time later this person discovers that the bleeding was in fact due to a cancerous tumor in the colon. He or she now has advanced colon cancer that has progressed to the lymph nodes or even to a distant organ, like the liver or the lungs. What makes this happen and what options does the person and his or her family have when it does?

Doctors commonly advise that in case a patient has rectal bleeding or blood in the stool, testing needs to be conducted to make sure the patient does not have colon cancer. The test that is often done is the colonoscopy, which involves the use of a flexible tube with a camera on the end to examine the inside of the colon. If growths (polyps or tumors) are discovered, they can be sampled (by biopsy) and possibly removed during the procedure. The samples (biopsies) are then analyzed for the presence of cancer. If no cancer is found, then colon cancer can frequently be ruled out as the cause of the blood. Regrettably, all too often, a patient's doctor will just assume the blood is from hemorrhoids without referring the person to a gastroenterologistand without conducting any testing, such as a colonoscopy, in order to make sure there is no cancer.

Why is this such a vital mistake? To understand that let’s briefly look at the way cancer kills. Colon cancer will kill roughly forty eight thousand men and women this year. Colon cancer becomes fatal after it grows and spreads outside of the colon reaching the bloodstream by way of the lymph nodes and taking hold in other organs such as the liver and the lungs. Once the cancer gets to that point the person's options for treatments are restricted and the likelihood that the patient will survive the cancer are substantially diminished. Treatments, which can include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other medications, may or may not work.

If at some point treatment is no longer effective, colon cancer is fatal. But it takes time for the cancer to get to that point. It normally begins as a polyp. Eventually these cells grow and make their way outside the colon where they then begin to spread and grow more.

It is thus essential that the cancer be found early. Unfortunately, all too frequently physicians merely assume that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding is from hemorrhoids, despite various reports by the patient. Rather than sending the patient to a specialist or doing tests, such as a colonoscopy, to rule out cancer, they inform the individual that there is nothing to worry about.

In the event the person did have cancer and it is not diagnosed until later, it could progress to a stage 3 or a stage 4 . Now, it might be much more advanced than when the patient originally reported rectal bleeding or blood in the stool. Hence, the individual now has a much lessened chance of survival. In such situations, the failure of a doctor to properly rule out cancer at the time of the patient’s initial reports may amount to a departure from the accepted standard of medical care leading the patient to pursue a medical malpractice claim.