When the right tools and industry knowledge are available to detect a certain illness, health care professionals must utilize those tools to diagnose patients. If a doctor fails to abide by this standard of care and misses a critical diagnosis, any New York Failure to Diagnose Cancer Lawyer could tell our readers that a patient injured as a result of the failure may bring a medical malpractice lawsuit against the negligent party.
While early detection is key for doctors, sometimes technology can’t keep up with the disease and doctors are limited in how early they can screen for certain disease. But technology may be improving in detecting at least one type of cancer. New Yorkers should be aware of a new recommendation by a government health panel that says doctors should use low-dose CT scans to screen people at risk of developing lung cancer.
The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force says that most people die from the deadly cancer because it isn’t detected until it’s too late. The low-dose scan recognizes the cancer early-on when treatment can be more successful. The types of people the panel considers at-risk are smokers with a 30-pack year (pack a day for 30 years) or more history and are either current smokers or have quit in the past 15 years. Hopefully the annual scans will prevent a large number of deaths caused by lung cancer. Early research suggests a 20 percent reduction in deaths when at-risk patients are screened with the low-dose CT option versus a regular X-ray.
The scans may also provide at-risk patients with some peace of mind in a world where lung cancer screening is not too regular. The task force wants to make screening routine, like mammograms for breast cancer. Once hospitals and the industry accept the screening recommendation, doctors who fail to abide by the recommendation and miss a cancer diagnosis may be liable to their patients.
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Health panel recommends low-dose screening to detect lung cancer
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Jay W. Dankner
JAY W. DANKNER was born, raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York. After graduation from law school in 1973, he joined the firm of the legendary, Harry H, Lipsig, under whose tutelage he learned the intricacies of civil litigation and trials. He tried and won his first case against General Motors in a case involving a design defect within weeks after his admission. Thereafter, he focused his attention on the emerging and developing field of law known as products liability litigation.
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