Is this a malpractice case? | Valentine J. Wallace, Esq. Law Office

June 18, 2019

Question

When I was 4 months pregnant with my daughter they found a 4x9 cm cyst on my right ovary by ultrasound... when I asked my doctor what we were going to do about it she said nothing it would disappear. My daughter was born by c section and I had a tubal ligation done at the same time. The next day when they removed the catheter they found that my bladder had been nicked during the c section. I was rushed in for emergency surgery by another doctor and when i was they found a 9x15 cancerous tumor on my right ovary... this was the "cyst" they found earlier in the pregnancy... the removal of which caused extra insiscions and scarring and an almost 2 month recovery time. I feel my doctor was negligent because she didn't follow up and eve tho she did the tubal ligation failed to see this and left it. Do i have grounds for a lawsuit? By the way I live in New York

Answer

Ovarian cancer is very serious. Assuming the pregnancy went to term, you're looking at a 5 month delay in diagnosis - during which time the 'cyst' almost doubled in size - and when you were eventually diagnosed, your oncologist would have seen from the pathology what stage the cancer was at. The question is to what extent the cancer progressed in 5 months. The pathology report will tell a lot about the type of cancer it was, and there are published statistics on growth and survival rates. Your OB-GYN's assessment that it was benign may have exposed you to unnecessary risk and allowed the cancer to develop, especially if you have family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Your OB-GYN and other hospital records will need to be reviewed. See a medical malpractice lawyer without delay.

Online answers to questions do not create an attorney-client relationship. There is no attorney-client relationship without a signed retainer agreement.

See All Questions & Answers