$1,500,000 Settlement for Failure to Diagnose Prostate Cancer
- Date: Winter 2009
- Attorney: Ronald P. Goldfaden
- Settlement: $1,500,000
- Practice Areas: Medical Malpractice, Failure to Diagnose, Prostate Cancer
Ronald Goldfaden represented a man, now 64 years old, in a claim against his general practitioner who failed to take action after three abnormal prostate-specific-antigen (PSA) test readings of 5.95 in October 2004, 5.33 in August 2005 and 7.03 in March 2006. Readings above 4 require further action, but the defendant doctor told our client that the results were normal for a man of his age. Our client later had a biopsy at the urging of his son, a urologist, which diagnosed the cancer , and led to the removal of our client’s prostate. Unfortunately, because of the delay, the cancer had spread to the seminal vesicles, and the man’s 15-year survival rate dropped from 90 percent to 60 percent.