Prostate cancer, when not treated on time, can spread to other parts of the body. Metastatic prostate cancer can be more difficult to treat and in some cases be life threatening. If you or a loved one has suffered additional harm or have had a change in your prognosis as the result of a delayed or missed diagnosis we can help you. Tony’s story below is unfortunately one of many such stories we see every day at Enable Law.
What happened?
Back in 2012, Tony*, noticed that he was having some difficulty when starting to urinate. He was 65 at the time and had been experiencing problems urinating for the last few months. He went to his GP to get checked out as he was worried this might be an early sign of prostate cancer.
His GP carried out blood tests. The results showed that he had a raised Prostate-Specific Antigen (“PSA”) level. PSA is a protein produced by the prostate, and a high level of PSA could potentially be a sign of cancer.
Tony then had a biopsy taken from his prostate, and unfortunately this confirmed that he had prostate cancer.
He underwent surgery to remove his prostate later in 2012. After the surgery Tony’s bladder function slowly improved and his PSA level dropped to the point where it was no longer detectable by 2014.
The Urologist who had been treating Tony discharged him in November 2014 and wrote to Tony’s GP to say that he didn’t need to see him again. His Urologist did however advise his GP to carry out PSA checks every year, and that Tony should be referred back to him if his PSA level rose above 0.2.
In late 2019 Tony started suffering from fatigue and went back to his GP. A blood test was carried out. The results showed that Tony’s PSA was abnormally high (at 16.8) and so a new cancer referral was made.
A CT scan in January 2020 confirmed that Tony’s cancer had returned, and that it had also now spread to his bones. He was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer (cancer that had spread from his prostate) and he was started on hormone treatment.
After being diagnosed, Tony made a complaint to his GP surgery. His GP surgery admitted that it had received and logged the letter from Tony’s Urologist’s letter back in 2014 (which had advised them to test his PSA levels every year). They also admitted that, despite the Urologist’s specific advice, they had failed to arrange yearly PSA tests.
Unfortunately, Tony also hadn’t been provided with a copy of the letter from his Urologist, so he wasn’t aware that his PSA was supposed to be checked every year.
What did this mean for Tony?
Tony approached Enable Law in May 2020 to investigate a potential claim. We got advice from an independent Oncologist (a doctor who specialises in cancer) on what would have likely happened had Tony’s PSA been tested every year. The Oncologist concluded that, had his PSA been checked, then it would have probably been raised above 0.2 as early as November 2015. This would have then triggered a referral back to Tony’s Urologist, and Tony’s prostate would have been treated with radiotherapy.
This treatment (around 4 ½ years earlier) would have likely meant that his cancer wouldn’t have returned, and it wouldn’t have spread to his bones.
A claim was set out to Tony’s GP surgery making these allegations. In response, they said that their Oncologist believed that his PSA would not have risen above 0.2 until November 2017 (rather than November 2015). They however agreed that Tony should have received treatment at a much earlier stage – and therefore recurrence of his cancer, and the spread to his bones, would have been avoided.
After these admissions were made, we were able to get an initial payment of compensation for Tony to help him meet some of the urgent costs he had incurred because of his diagnosis. We then got more advice from independent medical experts (from the Oncologist as well as a Psychiatrist and an Occupational Therapist) so that we could calculate the compensation that Tony was entitled to.
During our investigations Tony was sadly diagnosed with a meningioma (a brain tumour which grows in the meninges, the brain’s protective layers). He therefore underwent brain surgery to remove the meningioma, and thankfully made a good recovery.
To confirm whether the meningioma was related to Tony’s recurrent prostate cancer, we got further advice from an independent Neurologist. Our Neurologist and Oncologist agreed that the meningioma wasn’t related to his prostate cancer, or the GP surgery’s failures.
How we helped Tony in his delayed prostate cancer diagnosis compensation claim?
Tony suffered from multiple symptoms which were not all linked to the same condition. Apart from his metastatic prostate cancer and meningioma, he also suffered from Parkinson’s disease.
Morgan Lister, the clinical negligence solicitor that represented Tony, discussed Tony’s case at meetings with all our medical experts and a barrister. Our medical experts concluded that it was impossible to identify which of these 3 conditions were responsible for Tony’s individual symptoms.
In situations like this, where it is impossible to tell which symptoms are linked to an act of clinical negligence and which are linked to other conditions, the law allows Claimants to claim for all the costs related to their care – even though their symptoms might have different causes, some of which are related to the negligence and some of which aren’t.
Although the GP surgery disagreed that Tony should be entitled to all costs related to his needs, we were eventually able to settle his delayed prostate cancer diagnosis compensation claim for £250,000. This compensated him for the pain and suffering caused by the failure to diagnose and treat him sooner and provided him with the money he’d need to fund his care over the next 2 ½ years (until it was predicted that he would pass away because of his prostate cancer).
Tony was relieved to have the financial support he, and his wife, would need as his condition got worse during the terminal phase of his cancer.
He was also keen to avoid the same thing happening to other patients. His GP surgery had therefore promised to learn from their mistake, to review their procedures and to make any changes that were needed to ensure hospital letters were properly processed.
Contact us
If you or a loved one suffered additional harm or are facing a changed prognosis because of a delayed or missed cancer diagnosis, we can help you. We may not be able to turn back the clock, but we work with some of the best medical professionals in England and Wales who can help you understand if something should have been done to prevent what happened to you from happening. We can then help you access funds to get your life back as much as possible to what it would have been had the negligence not happened.
To speak to a member of our expert team call us on 0800 044 8488 or fill in our contact form.
*Name changed
