Has anyone had any sucess in a misdiagnosis case?
My husband went a year to an ENT specialist who kept telling him all his head ear and tongue pain was from the gerd. It turned out after many months to be stage 3 N 2 base of tongue.I have a lawyer looking into it Just curious. I think his chances would have been better if diagnosed earlier.
Thanks Diane

Hi Diane:
I have not filed litigation but did check into it. I went to my family doctor for about a year and continually presented the first 3 symptoms of laryngeal cancer, and he kept saying it was sinuitus and allergies. He never once looked down my throat, never took a throat culture. Finally I insisted that something be done. The ENT I went to found the cancer. I went and talked with a good friend that I use to work with that is an attorney. He has advised that I would have to prove that a different result would have occurred, if the cancer was found early. So far that has been hard to prove. Also it would be difficult to find an attorney who would take a case like this on a contingency basis. I don't know if this helps or not. But litigation is always difficult and can take forever to come to closure.

Mike D.

Diagnosed 06/2002, w/Laryngeal cancer, 1st stage

Thanks for the reply. I know litigation is difficult. I think basically we are doing the beginning stage of this to give th ENT specialist a wake up call. I think that you being stage 1 is great and wished my husband had been diagnosed at stage 1 instead of stage 3. I hope all goes well for you .
/Take Care
Diane

I disagree that proving that the outcome would be different would be a difficult task. There is well established data on the outcomes from early and late stage cancers, and specifically oral cancers. That is besides the fact that in all diseases, we know, and it has been published often, that a disease allowed to progress is harder to cure, and the outcome and long-term survival rates are poorer. Attorneys sometimes want the quick and easy kill. An accident victim where there is little research to be done, and fault is black and white. When you get an attorney on contingency, they only take the case because as a businessperson, they believe that their investment in time will be easily and promptly compensated by the award. Medical malpractice cases take longer to prosecute, and those interested in the quick kill don't jump in so easily. Don't get me started on this topic; it could end up in a diatribe that goes on for pages.... While there are good attorneys out there, as in any business, you have the other group, that is only looking for the easy buck.

Brian,
Thanks again for your input and your involvement in this site. Hopefully your advice will help others to look at this issue from all sides. The more people that alert Dr's of misdiagnosis, the more Dr's that will be more alert to check for this disease . Eary diagnosis will save many.

Take Care
Diane

Brian:
Where can I find the stats you are talking about? I have tried to find these and so have my attorney friend. I have 1 year from date of diagnosis to notify the doctor that a suit has been filed or to notify him one is possible. So far his missed diagnosis has cost me and my wife approximately $60,000.00 to date. The other part of this equation would be to find an attorney's office who would be willing to take a suit like this on a contingency basis where they are putting up all the money. They tend to like a better than 50/50 chance of winning the suit. I would truly like to find the stats. Thanks.

Mike D.

Diagnosed 06/2002, w/Laryngeal cancer, 1st stage

My husband John also is thinking about filing a lawsuit against our previous HMO and the doctor at the time, for not catching this disease in it's early stage. Of course John is also interested in joining a class action suit against the government since he believes his oral cancer is due to Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam, along with his diabetes which is service connected as well. I don't feel optimistic about winning a claim against the government since the dangers of smoking were just coming into light then, and even so - try to prove that his cancer is a result of his time there would be almost impossible. I do feel strongly though that our previous doctor who is affiliated with our former HMO is to blame for neglecting his symptoms and denying him further tests that could have caught this disease at a much earlier stage. I feel they should be held accountable for this "mistake" and my husband is looking into this matter with a fiend of ours who is an Attorney to see what we can do about this. I think the only way to really bring oral cancer into the limelight is to send a message to the doctors and the medical profession (and anyone else who will listen) that the symptoms of this disease can often be dismissed as something minor, but patients have a right to have further tests done and doctors should do all they can to check for this often hidden cancer.

File a claim with the VA first. They may award you disability. I am a Vietnam vet and many guys on my ship were exposed to asbestos as well as Agent Orange. The local VA rep sent me a claim form because of the oral cancer (I'm not quite sure how to link it though) The ship never went to Vietnam while I was on it. They (the VA) told me they're getting a lot of claims from Vietnam Vets these days.

Thanks Gary. I printed your response out for John, and after his follow-up appt. with the doc tomorrow - he is going to look into this further.

donnajean..... As I have said in our personal emails, I believe any thoughts your husband has regarding Vietnam being the cause of his oral cancer should be abandoned. Agent Orange, while a known carcinogen, has a strong history of producing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It has no documented record of creating oral cancers. As you know I served in Vietnam the year of the big TET and afterwards, the same time period as your husband. One of my bases there was the same one your husband was at, a scenic little piece of hell on earth known as An Hoa. Agent Orange is a defoliant, and was used throughout Vietnam at various times, but mostly in the south very far from the I Corps near Danang, An Hoa, and the DMZ. An Hoa in particular was in a dust bowl, with jungles on the mountains around it. While we routinely patrolled and humped around in those jungles (code named the Arizona Territory) to keep the VC from getting within rocket range of Danang, the area was never defoliated with chemicals. We didn

hi all,

i currently am in the middle of my malpractice suite against the dental professionals who missed my diagnosis. my lawyer thinks we have a great case......and it has really helped that i have had him by my side throughout all of my treatments and complications. they have taken lots of pictures of my surgery scars, radiation burns, fistulas etc.

the only problem is that it will take a long time to resolve. first they have to get a team of experts together to look at all of my records, and then it's basically a battle of my experts vs. the dental professionals. hopefully this will all be through in 3 years, but who knows.

Failure to Diagnose Cases. This is one on the record books already, there are others out there. Many cases are settled with a non disclosure clause, and that prevents people from knowing what exactly transpired. I am going to set up a poll on the message board this weekend to survey those that come here in the next 30 days on their experiences in getting diagnosed properly. But here is one case to look at.

Plaintiff was a 64 year old former citrus plant packer who had been 100% disabled for a number of years when she visited Dr. M., a general dentist, to have upper and lower partial dentures made. Within a week after the insertion of the lower partial denture, the patient began to complain to the dentist that she had a sore under the denture on the left side, that she feared she had cancer and that her father had oral cancer.

Her complaints were largely dismissed and the dentist and dental assistants polished down part of the denture several times during the two months following insertion of the denture. The patient claimed that twice during the two months after insertion, the dentist advised her to leave the partial denture out and not wear it for brief periods.

The patient continued to complain and eventually, five months after insertion, the dentist made a progress note that documented that she had a "denture sore," for the first time. He again told her to leave the denture out and three days later, she returned complaining that the sore was bigger and hurting more. The dentist dismissed her complaints, writing a note that said she was "healing better."

Six days later, the patient's "denture sore" was biopsied by an oral surgeon and proven to be infiltrating Stage III squamous cell carcinoma. The patient underwent a wide excision including partial mandibulectomy and radical neck dissection followed by radiation therapy. She developed osteoradionecrosis and lost her entire left mandible despite having gone through 87 hyperbaric oxygen "dives". She also had several recurrences which further disfigured her and eventually resulted in the loss of her tongue.

Shortly before trial, plaintiff found and handed over to her attorneys the partial denture which revealed that the saddle area of the denture had been ground down and polished in precisely the location of the tumor; the saddle had been shortened by the full width of the artificial second molar tooth. Plaintiff argued that such dramatic modification of the denture could only be explained by having to accommodate the slowly growing tumor mass into which the denture was impinging and causing the pain. The denture was admitted into evidence during the trial.

The defendant dentist was never asked about the partial denture because it was discovered after the defendant's deposition had been taken. The defendant's attorney argued that the denture was mutilated on one visit when the dentist first documented the denture sore. The defendant dentist sat through the trial but did not testify in his own defense. His defense also centered on a "field cancerization" theory, contending that regardless of when the tumor was detected, even if it were detected when tiny, the plaintiff was going to have radiation anyway and would develop multiple recurrences anyway because of an unknown genetic defect which predisposed some non-smoker, non-drinker patients to multiple cancers.

A jury returned a verdict for plaintiff after a confidential "high-low" settlement was reached.

This defense that the patient had genetic defects that would have caused him to have cancer anyway has been tried before and seldom works. In all cancers we know that the earlier the diagnosis, the more positive the final outcome. Statistically those found with stage 1 and 2 cancers live longer and have less morbidity than those who have stage 3 and 4 cancers.

Plaintiff's experts: Richard R. Souviron, D.D.S., Coral Gables, FL (general dentistry); James J. Sciubba, D.M.D., Ph.D., New Hyde Park, NY (oral pathology); Randy V. Heysek, M.D., Lakeland, FL (radiation oncology); Gerald Sokol, M.D., Tampa, FL (radiation oncology); James R. Chandler, M.D., Miami, FL (ear, nose & throat surgery). Defendant's experts: Charles L. Ross, D.D.S., Miami, FL (general dentistry); Ronald A. Baughman, D.D.S., Gainesville, FL (oral pathology); Gordon Saskin, M.D., St. Petersburg, FL (ear, nose & throat surgery); Robert E. Marx, D.D.S., Miami, FL (oral surgery).

Polk County, Florida, Circuit Court Case No. GCG-93-2883. J. Ron Smith, Esq., of Smith, Cassidy, Harris, Platt & Radabaugh, P.A., Lakeland, FL and Kenneth P. Liroff, D.D.S., J.D.,