BREAST CANCER- LEGAL ISSUES

For the last decade, failure to detect breast mass has remained the most common reason for medical negligence litigation; the usual defendant is the radiologist, who is charged with missing a lesion on a breast study. Less com-monly, a primary caregiver, such as an obstetrician or gynecologist (OB/GYN) may be sued. A diagnosis of breast cancer may be missed or delayed for the following reasons: 1. Assumptions regarding breast cancer diagnosis: One such assump-tion is that only women over the age of fifty with a family history of breast cancer are at risk. Because younger women are at a lower risk for developing breast cancer, surveillance may be reduced in that age group. Another assump-tion is that a negative mammogram or biopsy is conclusive. When health care practitioners are over-reliant on negative mammogram results, breast cancer may go undiagnosed. This may be true even in situations where the woman reports that she feels a lump. Similarly, health care practitioners may rel