Chicago Injury Attorney Blog

One week after the Cook County wrongful death trial against Northwest Suburban Urologists, Ltd. and urologist Jeffery Norris, M.D. began, a $1 million Chicago medical malpractice settlement was reached between the defendants and the family of Daniel Russell.

Russell died in April 2006 from bladder cancer. After experiencing flank pain, microscopic hematuria, nocturia, and dysuria, he was referred to Norris in late 2002 for a second opinion. The urologist told Russell that his medical problems were behavioral and that he should relax his sphincter. Even though the patient exhibited early signs of bladder cancer, Norris did not perform any procedure to make sure that he didn’t have the disease.

Russell went to see Norris again in 2004. This time, the urologist performed a cystoscopy. The patient was diagnosed as having late stage muscle invasive bladder cancer.

Delayed Diagnosis of Bladder Cancer
Failure to timely diagnose an affliction such as cancer can prove catastrophic for the patient. The disease may have accelerated to an incurable phase or, the treatments required to try saving the patient’s live may be very painful and invasive with no guarantee of survival. Two of the more common causes of delayed diagnosis are the failure to correctly diagnose symptoms and testing-related errors.

Delayed diagnosis of bladder cancer increases a patient’s fatality risk by 30%. According to researchers at the University of Michigan Health System, persons who were diagnosed with bladder cancer less than three months after symptoms started appearing had a significantly greater chance of survival than those who were not diagnosed until over nine months after the symptoms began to surface.

In Circuit Court, Chicago Daily Bulletin, January 26, 2010

Delayed Diagnosis Raises Bladder Cancer Death Risk, Renal and Urology News, April 29, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Northwest Suburban Urologists, Ltd.

Bladder Cancer, National Cancer Institute