Iowa Man Awarded $12.25M For Wrong Cancer Diagnosis

Introduction

A Polk County jury awarded more than $12 million to a Panora man who underwent surgery after a medical center wrongfully diagnosed that he had cancer and removed his prostate.

Iowa clinic admitted a pathologist mixed up tissue samples for a patient who had prostate cancer and for the plaintiff who did not have cancer. In a deposition filed in July 2018, the clinic's anatomical laboratory director stated while examining two separate prostate files that she mistakenly scanned the plaintiff's file as the cancerous file.

According to the court records, Iowa Clinic urologist performed a blood test on the plaintiff and suggested he might have cancer. He submitted the plaintiff's reports to a doctor in the pathology department. Based on the incorrect diagnosis, the urologist informed the plaintiff that he had prostate cancer and the gland must be removed as soon as possible. On April 3, 2017, the urologist removed the plaintiff's prostate at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. The surgery caused damages to his nearby nerves and left him impotent and incontinent.

Plaintiff and his wife initially asked for $15 million in compensatory damages from the clinic and the pathologist. The jury awarded $12.25 million after the plaintiff lawyer told the jury that the surgery had cost the plaintiff his manhood.

Propecia (finasteride 5mg) manufactured by Merck & Co. and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1992 is used for the treatment of bothersome symptoms in men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (also referred to as BPH or enlarged prostate).

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