Guidelines for cancer screening and testing in case a patient shows symptoms suggestive of colon cancer exist for a good reason. Following the guidelines saves lives. In the event that a physician fails to adhere to these guidelines and the patient does have cancer which ultimately ends up spreading from the resulting delay in detecting the cancer, that physician risks a lawsuit. To illustrate such a situation look at the following documented case.

At the time the individual in this case started treating with his primary care physician the physician did a full physical examination and recorded his findings of both internal and external hemorrhoids. The physician recorded that the individual had bleeding from the rectum occasionally. The physician failed to do any more testing to check for the presence of blood in the man's stool or to account for the reason for the bleeding. Furthermore, even though the man was fifty years old when, the physician failed to refer the individual for a sigmoidoscopy or a colonoscopy in order to screen for colon cancer.

Two years later, following several days of abdominal pain the patient was seen in the urgent care department at his doctor's office. The man was examined by a nurse who marked in his record that she found occult blood in the man's stool using a guiaic test. When the individual came back for a follow-up with his physician but the doctor failed to do anything concerning the positive finding of blood in the stool. The doctor did though suggest that the individual have a screening sigmoidoscopy and referred him to a gastroenterologist.

The gastroenterologist did the sigmoidoscopy as requested by the primary care physician rather than a full colonoscopy. The gastroenterologist only checked up to thirty-five centimeters and recorded merely the presence of hemorrhoids none of which were bleeding. The gastroenterologist did not determine the source for the prior finding of blood in the stool.

On a visit to the internist 2 years later the man complained of bloating of the abdomen. When the internist conducted a physical examination of the patient he was able to detect an a mass on the liver and had the patient get a CT scan. The CT scan found large masses present both in the liver as well as the colon:. Now the internist finally referred the patient for a colonoscopy which confirmed colon cancer. By then however, the patient had stage IV colon cancer which had progressed to such a degree that he was no longer a candidate for surgery. The man commenced treating with chemotherapy yet passed away just over a year after his diagnosis.

A lawsuit was pursued against both doctors by the family of the patient. The law firm that handled this matter reported that they were able to obtain a settlement in the amounts of $1,500,000 for the man's family.

This matter illustrates the importance of conducting appropriate tests for symptoms that raise the suspicion of colon cancer. Specifically if a patient has blood in the stool physicians generally concur that a colonoscopy rather than sigmoidoscopy should be done to eliminate the possibility cancer. By performing only a sigmoidoscopy in this instance the doctors were unable to inspect the full length of the patient's colon and hence wrongly eliminated colon cancer as a reason for the blood. This ended in a two year holdup in the detection of the patient's cancer. The law firm that represented the family on behalf of the man's family no doubt had medical experts prepared to offer testimony that had this delay not happened the individual's cancer would not have spread and the man would have survived after treatment.