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Breast Cancer Misdiagnosis Lawsuits In Illinois
Since 2001, our experienced lawyers have helped thousands of people pursue medical malpractice lawsuits. This includes a failure to diagnose breast cancer. If you’d like our help, please contact us at 312-346-5320 to speak with a lawyer for free.
A failure to diagnose breast cancer is a serious problem that can have devastating consequences for patients and their family members. A patient’s chance of effective treatment and survival can decrease significantly if a medical professional overlooks or delays a breast cancer diagnosis. When this happens it’s also very frustrating because with proper care, breast cancer can usually be caught in time to save the patient’s life.
In cases that involve a failure to diagnose breast cancer, timing is one of the most important elements. First, timing is essential when it comes to the diagnosis of your breast cancer. A delay in diagnosis of six months or more can significantly impact your prognosis especially if your disease progresses to an advanced stage. When the delay is that long it usually makes a big difference in the ultimate outcome. That is an essential part of any Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit.
Second, timing is also essential when filing a claim. In Illinois, there is a two-year window to file a claim for medical malpractice. This two-year time frame begins when you knew or should have known there was a misdiagnosis. This is typically measured from the date on which you were properly diagnosed. However, there is the statute of repose that prevents claims from being filed that are more than four years after the misdiagnosis. For example, if you were misdiagnosed in 2020, then five years later you received a correct diagnosis, your claim is barred.
Furthermore, if you are within the two-year window, an important element is the progression of the breast cancer due to the misdiagnosis. If it has significantly progressed, such as advancing from stage 1 to stage 4, and a correct diagnosis would have stopped the progression, you may have a significant claim.
When diagnosing patients with breast cancer, doctors’ diagnosis involves a combination of patient-reported symptoms, physical examinations and advanced imaging techniques. Patients will usually report the following symptoms:
- Changes in breast appearance
- Noticing lumps or masses on breast or on underarms
- Breast swelling or thickening
- Unexplained pain of the nipple or breast
- Nipple discharge
- Family history
- Other risk factors (smoking, health, etc.)
If you are making these complaints and your doctor doesn’t take the proper steps to make a diagnosis, you might have a case. Breast cancer is very treatable if caught early and a delay can be catastrophic. Even when they take proper steps, we’ve seen cases where diagnostic tests like mammograms are misinterpreted or even a case where they discovered breast cancer, but failed to tell the patient about it.
If you believe that you or a loved one was misdiagnosed, our experienced attorneys would love to talk to you about it for free. Please call us any time at 312-346-5320 for help everywhere in Illinois. It costs nothing to hire an attorney as lawyers only get paid if and when they win the case.