A $3 million settlement has been reached in a medical malpractice case that alleged failure to diagnose ovarian cancer in a 49-year-old woman.
The plaintiff alleged that a Chicago-area hospital failed to identify a complex cyst during an ultrasound that was ordered by the woman’s physician. The lawsuit claimed that the radiologist recommended that follow-up scans be performed, but that no such scans were ordered by the physician the woman saw in a follow-up visit.
According to the lawsuit, because of failure to diagnose, a treatable Stage I tumor had time to grow into a non-curable Stage IIIC cancer. By the time the cancer was diagnosed, it had spread to lymph nodes and multiple organs, requiring radical surgery and extensive chemotherapy, according to the lawsuit. Although the patient is currently in remission, the lawsuit claimed that the delay in diagnosis dramatically decreased her expected survival rates.
The case was initially filed for the plaintiff alone, but a loss of consortium claim was later added for her partner. The couple is joined in a civil union; attorneys for the couple said that benefits under the Illinois Wrongful Death Act will apply should the patient succumb to cancer.