Doctors sometimes miss cancer after early diagnostic testing. Unfortunately, failing to catch cancer as early as possible may let the disease progress, potentially cutting off life-saving treatments. But when does a delayed cancer diagnosis result from medical malpractice? A doctor’s delay in diagnosing cancer may constitute malpractice if their diagnostic and treatment decisions failed to comply with the applicable standard of care in the patient’s case.
Common Reasons for Delayed Diagnosis of Cancer
Delayed diagnosis can result from various decisions or oversights during testing and the diagnostic process. Some of the most frequent reasons why physicians may miss a cancer diagnosis include:
- Failure to take a complete patient history, which misses important risk factors (e.g., family history of cancer, occupational exposure to carcinogens, lifestyle factors like alcohol use or smoking, etc.)
- Dismissing symptoms (e.g., persistent cough, rectal bleeding, unexplained weight loss, unusual lumps or masses under the skin) or associating them with other, more common conditions
- Failure to order imaging, lab tests, or biopsies
- Misreading imaging scans (e.g., mammograms, MRIs, CT scans) or pathology slides
- Failing to follow up and re-test after abnormal test results
- Failure to refer or consult with specialists (e.g., oncologists)
When Does a Delayed Diagnosis Become Malpractice?
A delay in diagnosing cancer does not always mean that malpractice has occurred. A physician or other healthcare professional may commit malpractice when they provide treatment that does not meet the applicable standard of care in a patient’s case. Although the specific details of the standard of care vary from case to case, the standard generally requires that a healthcare provider make decisions or take actions that other reasonably prudent providers with similar training and experience would take under the same circumstances.
Delayed diagnosis does not, by itself, constitute malpractice. Instead, a delayed cancer diagnosis can become malpractice if the delay occurs due to a healthcare provider’s deviation from the accepted standard of care in their patient’s case.
A delayed diagnosis claim usually requires a patient to present expert testimony from a licensed physician in the same or a related medical field as their treating provider. The patient’s expert must describe, based on their training and experience, the standard of care in the patient’s case, explain how the patient’s provider deviated from it, and opine that the deviation caused a delay in the patient’s cancer diagnosis.
A malpractice claim will also require the patient to show that they suffered harm from a delay in their cancer diagnosis. Harm may result from a delayed diagnosis if a patient loses the chance for more effective or less intensive treatment because their cancer progressed to a more advanced stage during the delay.
Filing Deadlines for Medical Malpractice in New York
Under N.Y. CPLR § 214-A, New York’s statute of limitations for medical malpractice claims, a patient who suffers a delayed diagnosis typically has two years and six months (30 months) from the later of:
- The date on which they knew or reasonably should have known that a physician’s negligence led to a delayed diagnosis that harmed them, or
- The date of the last treatment for a continuous course of treatment
Contact Our Firm Today If Your Doctors Failed to Catch Your Cancer in Time
If your doctor made a late diagnosis of your cancer, when different diagnostics and treatment decisions could have caught the condition earlier, you might have a legal claim to recover compensation for your harm and loss. Contact McCann Legal, PC today for a free consultation with a medical malpractice attorney to learn more about why a delayed diagnosis of cancer can occur and discuss when delays may result from a physician’s malpractice.