Prostate Cancer

One of the most common types of cancer that men face is prostate cancer, which arises in the gland that produces seminal fluid. Some prostate cancers grow slowly enough that they might not trigger significant harm. If your prostate cancer worsened or a loved one died because of a doctor’s failure to diagnose or treat it, you should talk to the seasoned Upstate New York prostate cancer lawyers at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. We are experienced trial attorneys who understand how to establish the right to recover damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Symptoms of prostate cancer can include frequent urination, urination difficulties, erection difficulties, blood in semen or urine, pain during urination, and pain during ejaculation. Prostate cancer that is caught early has better odds of successful treatment. Once prostate cancer spreads out of the prostate gland, it can aggressively spread and become quite difficult to treat. Several factors, including a patient’s age and health, are considered when determining how to treat prostate cancer. The stage of prostate cancer is one of the factors to be considered. Many doctors decide what someone’s potential treatment options are based partly on the risk that the cancer will recur after an initial treatment. If your prostate cancer was left undiagnosed or untreated due to a doctor’s failure to abide by professional standards, you may be able to recover damages in a medical malpractice lawsuit.

To prove medical malpractice, a prostate cancer attorney in Upstate New York will need to show a professional duty of care that applied to your situation, a breach of the professional duty of care, causation, and damages. In most cases, we will need to retain an expert to opine on what the professional duty of care was, how your doctor or oncologist deviated from it, and how the deviation caused your injuries. Your doctor’s professional duty of care depends on what other reasonably prudent doctors in Upstate New York would have done under the same circumstances faced by your doctor.

Departures from the professional standard of care can include failures to take a patient history, failures to conduct appropriate testing, failures to diagnose, misdiagnoses, failures to treat, or improper treatment. They also can include mixing up patients’ test results or misreading test results. Mistakes that could lead to a failure to diagnose or a misdiagnosis may be made not by the treating physician but by a radiologist, intern, or medical technician. In some cases, there are errors in treatment that constitute medical malpractice.

Our Upstate New York prostate cancer attorneys will need to show that a departure from the professional standard of care is what caused your injuries, rather than a progression of the cancer that would have occurred even if your doctor had followed the applicable standard of care. Prostate cancer is usually treatable if it is caught in time, so it is devastating when a doctor’s failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis worsens the prognosis or causes death.

If we can successfully establish liability for medical malpractice in connection with prostate cancer, we may be able to recover compensatory damages on your behalf. These damages can include compensation for both economic and non-economic losses. They may include medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, and mental anguish. For instance, if you needed to undergo a radical prostatectomy because your prostate cancer progressed due to medical malpractice, you may be able to recover the costs of the radical prostatectomy and the wages that you lost while going through treatment and recovering, along with compensation for your loss of enjoyment of life and pain.

If you were harmed as a result of undiagnosed or untreated prostate cancer and suspect medical malpractice, you should talk to the seasoned Upstate New York attorneys at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. We represent injured patients in Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Ithaca, Auburn, Lyons, Oswego, Cooperstown, Oneida, Binghamton, Wampsville, Canandaigua, Ithaca, Watertown, Elmira, Herkimer, and Lowville. Call DeFrancisco & Falgiatano at 833-200-2000 or complete our online form.