Local Law Blogs

Approximately 45,000 people will develop malignant melanoma each year. 

7,000 people will die each year from skin cancer.  The good news is that the rate of death is decreasing primarily because people are paying attention to their health and visiting their doctor earlier when they suspect a problem.  That is the key to Skin Cancer survival, detect the cancer early.  If you do then the chances of survival increase dramatically.

Misdiagnosis of skin cancer cases are usually directed at either the pathologist or the primary doctor.  Cases against primary doctors often are based on:

• not following up on a suspicious lesion or mole,
• failing to refer the patient to a specialist or
• failing to biopsy the suspicious lesion (especially when the mole has some of the warning signs for malignant melanoma.)

Cases against a pathologist usually are about their failing to properly recognize the melanoma in the biopsy.

I once heard about a case where a mole was biopsied and the doctor who did the biopsy threw the specimen away so it was never checked.  That person went on to develop metastatic melanoma.