High million dollar jury award – failure to diagnose abdominal aortic aneurysm
An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), which is an abnormal expansion or bulge in the diameter of the aorta, is a life-threatening condition because if it is not detected and repaired, it can rupture and lead to sudden death or serious complications. In many patients a AAA does not cause symptoms or complaints, and as a result, for those patients, the AAA is often discovered coincidentally on a CT scan, x-ray or MRI taken for some other reason. Once discovered, the AAA can be monitored to see if it grows, and if so, when it reaches a certain size, surgery can be done to repair the aneurysm before it ruptures.
Unfortunately, for our client, a Pennsylvania woman in her mid-50s, a AAA showed up on a chest CT scan, but the radiologist who read the scan failed to see it. In short, the radiologist “missed” an obvious AAA. As a result of that “miss,” this patient’s AAA continued to grow undetected over the next few years and eventually it ruptured. That rupture caused massive bleeding and a cascade of other medical complications that led to the patient’s death.
On behalf of the patient’s beloved husband, we filed a wrongful death claim against the radiologist who “missed” the AAA on the chest CT scan. The case was tried to a jury in central Pennsylvania, and during that trial we presented the expert testimony of another radiologist who independently reviewed the CT scan. During his testimony, he displayed the actual images of the CT scan in the courtroom and demonstrated to the jury how an obvious bulge in the aorta was “missed” by the radiologist against whom we filed the claim. The opposing party presented testimony from their own expert who admitted that the AAA was indeed present on the CT scan but said that radiologists are not perfect and sometimes they miss things. After hearing the entire case, the jury ruled in our favor and found that this particular AAA should have been seen. Had it been detected, this woman’s AAA could have been watched with follow-up or surveillance imaging, and if it grew beyond a certain limit, repair surgery could have been done before it ruptured. Sadly, that did not happen.
Medical malpractice cases involving failure to detect abnormal conditions on radiology films such as x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs can present a real challenge in the courtroom because those images, to the untrained eye, often look like just random shades of gray. Therefore, it was very important in this case that we showed the jury the actual CT images and had our radiology expert walk through those images step by step to demonstrate how the bulge in the aorta was obvious and should have been seen by the radiologist who read it.
Our client, ironically, worked as a transport aide in a radiology department of a local hospital. Therefore, the damages awarded by the jury included all of the future wages she would have earned, and an additional amount for her husband’s loss of the companionship and relationship with his wife.