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Expert Witness, Medical Malpractice Case for Missed Lung Mass

Principal Investigator
Name
Daniel Pennington
Degrees
MD
Institution
Mercy Medical Center North Iowa
Position Title
physician, expert witness
Email
About this CDAS Project
Study
NLST (Learn more about this study)
Project ID
NLST-244
Initial CDAS Request Approval
Sep 26, 2016
Title
Expert Witness, Medical Malpractice Case for Missed Lung Mass
Summary
I serve as an expert witness in medical malpractice case involving a private physician who ordered a screening chest CT for his patient. A 29mm lung nodule was detected, but not followed up appropriately. Months later widely metastatic adenocarcinoma was recognized. The question is the status of this T1bNxMx cancer at the time it was detected/ignored. The attorney defending the physician wants to know the odds that this could have been a curable lesion if acted upon appropriately.
Aims

Discover from NLST data the frequency distribution of nodal and metastatic spread of all T1b lesions detected: i.e. How many T1b lesions had favorable N and M status? Use these data, along with treatment success rates form various TNM stages, to approach the attorney's question.

Collaborators

none