Testicular Cancer Diagnosis Delay: $2.5 Million Malpractice Settlement
Delay in diagnosis of recurrence of testicular cancer leads to death of 59-year-old man
2025 Medical Malpractice Settlement Report
By Adam R. Satin, Attorney for the plaintiff
Case Summary
This medical malpractice / wrongful death claim involved a delay in diagnosis of a late recurrence of testicular cancer in a 59-year-old man, leading to his premature death. The decedent had a very remote history of testicular cancer in the 1980s, which was effectively treated with no recurrence for many years. In April of 2014, however, he underwent a CT scan to assess an unrelated small bowel obstruction (“SBO”). The CT scan found enlarged lymph nodes. Despite this potentially significant finding in a patient with a history of cancer, the decedent’s surgeon did not communicate this finding to him. Over three years later, in July of 2017, the decedent was diagnosed with metastatic recurrence of his testicular cancer, to which he succumbed in 2022.
The plaintiff claimed that the decedent’s surgeon, who treated him for the SBO at the hospital and in follow-up after his discharge, failed to inform the decedent of the radiologist’s report of the incidental finding of lymphadenopathy. Plaintiff’s counsel used what the defendant thought was the strength of this causation defense – the extreme aggressiveness of the cancer – as the key to defeating it.
Plaintiff’s counsel secured experts in oncology who were prepared to testify that it would have been impossible for the decedent to live with that same virulent cancer for the three years after the CT scan was done in 2014 without receiving any treatment. Instead, the plaintiff secured experts who were prepared to show that this tumor only transformed into this “aggressive” form in the final 6-8 months before his diagnosis in July of 2017. Prior to that transformation, the tumor was either (a) a partially active, non seminomatous germ cell tumor with a 68% cure rate or (b) a completely benign teratoma with essentially a 100% cure rate, that subsequently mutated. Thus, the plaintiff was prepared to establish that it was the delay in treating the curable disease in 2014 that allowed transformation to an incurable disease.
The case settled for $2,500,000.00 for the plaintiff
Lubin & Meyer medical malpractice attorneys Andrew C. Meyer, Jr., and Adam R. Satin represented the plaintiff in this case.
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