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Walter Osuna and Bradley Zimmerman obtained a significant award on behalf of a 56-year-old man who wrongly received a delayed renal cancer diagnosis due to a radiological misread of a spinal MRI performed over two years prior to his diagnosis. As a result of the delayed cancer diagnosis, our client’s cancer was left untreated for nearly two and a half years and ultimately spread to our client’s lung, requiring extensive treatment and numerous surgeries.
Two and a half years prior to receiving his diagnosis, our client received a spinal MRI to assess his complaints of back pain. The imaging revealed numerous disc bulges in addition to a significant mass near his kidney. Unfortunately, the radiologist failed to document and diagnose the mass present on our client’s spinal MRI, an egregious departure from the accepted standard of care. Further investigation of our client’s imaging would have revealed that the mass was contributing to our client’s pain.
As a result of the radiologist’s misread, our client’s back pain progressively worsened for about a year, to the point where the severity of his back pain became very alarming. Unfortunately, our client’s doctor only treated his progressing symptoms with pain management, rather than obtaining a differential diagnosis to rule out alternative causes of the pain.
Just over a year following our client’s initial spinal MRI, our client began to exhibit extremely disturbing symptoms indicative of another issue, including episodes of bloody urine, sharp lower back pain, and fatigue, which our client disclosed to his doctor. Notably, two days after an appointment with his primary doctor, our client presented to the emergency room with complaints of lower back pain but was discharged without a proper work up to rule out alternative causes or the reason for his symptoms.
During the following months, our client continued to follow up with his doctor regarding his symptoms, which worsened. Our client began to experience streaking urine, burning when he urinated, and increased frequency in urination, which are all extremely alarming signs in the presence of severe back pain. Unfortunately, our client’s doctor unsuccessfully attempted to treat our client’s symptoms with antibiotics, but our client’s symptoms persisted for another six months.
Eventually, two years after his initial spinal MRI, our client also began to display abnormal labs. However, his care team failed to investigate the cause of his abnormal labs, allowing our client’s health to deteriorate further. A few months following our client’s abnormal labs, he presented to the emergency room for a second time with blood in his urine and irregular urinary symptoms. Following his ER appointment, our client received additional imaging which revealed a large left renal mass, consistent with a partially necrotic tumor. Imaging completed soon after also revealed metastatic disease on his lung lobes, indicating that the tumor metastasized to his lungs.
Ultimately, nearly two and a half years after our client’s initial spinal MRI, a core needle biopsy confirmed that our client was suffering from renal cell cancer. As a result of the significant delay in treating our client’s cancer, the cancer metastasized to our client’s lungs. Our client had to undergo aggressive immunotherapy and chemo infusion for months in addition to invasive surgeries to remove his tumor.
Renal cell carcinoma, is the most common type of kidney cancer in adults. Symptoms of renal cell carcinoma include bloody urine, loss of appetite, persistent side or back pain, fatigue, and unexplained weight loss. If an individual exhibits any of these symptoms, it is important for their doctor to quickly rule out renal cell carcinoma as the cause of any of these symptoms to ensure that the symptoms do not worsening.
If you or a loved one have suffered from a delayed renal cell carcinoma diagnosis, contact the Jacob Fuchsberg Law Firm today for a free consultation.
We can help when the unimaginable happens.
