Testicular cancer is an abnormal growth of cells that forms a tumor in one or both testicles. Symptoms can include a painless lump or swelling in the testicle, a heavy feeling or dull ache in the lower abdomen or groin, a sudden fluid buildup in the scrotum, or a change in how the testicle feels.
As one of the most curable and treatable forms of cancer, testicular cancer has an overall five-year survival rate of over 95-percent. Catching this type of cancer early matters because early treatment is usually simpler, carries fewer side effects, and keeps the cancer from spreading. Early detection can also preserve options that disappear later, including surgery that spares part of the testicle and the chance to back sperm before treatment. The treatment options for testicular cancer are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
While testicular cancer impacts fertility, many men are still able to have children after treatment. In this case, though, our client’s physicians failed to act on an ultrasound that flagged cancer in both testicles. As a result, he lost both testicles, his ability to produce testosterone, and his chance to father more children.
The Townsley Law Firm represented him and recovered a settlement of over $325,000.
The Warning Was Already on the Ultrasound
Our client was sent to a urologist after finding a lump in his right testicle. The urologist ordered an ultrasound, and the radiologist’s report was clear on both sides. The report described multiple nodules on the right testicle, and it also described questionable nodules in the left testicle. The radiologist wrote that the findings most likely represented possible bilateral synchronous testicular masses. The urologist had the report and the images. He never told our client about the left-side findings. When our client asked, he was told his left testicle was normal.
Three days after the first visit, the urologist removed the right testicle. Pathology confirmed a T1 pure seminoma. Before that surgery, no one counseled our client about banking sperm or about what it would mean if the cancer turned out to be in both testicles. Sperm banking came up only after the testicle was gone, and he was told banking was unnecessary.
Suspicious nodules documented on an ultrasound are a finding that must be acted on. An ultrasound that flags a possible second cancer exists so the findings can be evaluated and followed. This was not a hidden cancer that no test caught. The cancer was on the imaging from the very first week of care, and it was left untreated.
Two Doctors Saw the Same Report and Said Nothing
After the first surgery, the urologist sent our client to a radiation oncologist for radiation treatment, where the oncologist’s own intake record repeated the radiologist’s original findings for both testicles. Our client was told, again, that the left testicle was normal. Two physicians held the same report, and neither one followed up or told the patient.
Over roughly 17 months, our client was seen by the urologist seven times. At the last visit, our client reported feeling a new lesion in the left testicle. The response was to switch his self-exams from daily to monthly, with another reassurance that the testicle was normal. No imaging was ordered. Our client also reported the same lump to the radiation oncologist’s office. No imaging was ordered there either.
Why the Delay Cost Him the Second Testicle
Roughly two and a half years after the first ultrasound, our client went to a different urologist because the lump in his left testicle was still worrying him. At that appointment, an ultrasound was ordered, and imaging showed two masses in the left testicle. Our client was then referred to a specialized cancer center.
There, he went through months of Clomid treatment aimed at raising his sperm count enough to bank sperm, which did not work. He then underwent the removal of the left testicle, which left him effectively castrated.
The delay in diagnosis and treatment narrowed our client’s options to the outcome that took both testicles. This is a profound physical and emotional loss, one that reached into our client’s sense of self, his health, and his future, and it resulted from a follow-up that did not happen.
The Loss of Fertility Is Its Own Lasting Harm
Losing both testicles cost our client more than the organs. He lost the ability to produce testosterone, and he will need hormone therapy for the rest of his life. The delayed diagnosis and the radiation treatment that followed left our client without enough sperm to have more children, a permanent loss that a timely diagnosis might have helped him avoid or prepare for.
The harm is not only physical. Our client lives with anxiety and depression over the loss of his testicles, depression over the children he will not have, mood swings, and low libido. That loss is distinct from the surgeries themselves and is a part of what a claim like this must account for.
