$900,000 Settlement on Behalf of Nurse Practitioner for Alleged Failure to Timely Diagnose Cancer

​A $900,000 settlement on behalf of a nurse practitioner in Massachusetts resolved litigation alleging failure to timely diagnose lung cancer in a patient who was found to have stage IV lung cancer one year after the defendant saw her, according to a report published July 2016 in Zarin's Medical Liability Alert (subscription required). The defendant nurse practitioner ordered an abdominal computed tomography scan to diagnose the source of an 81-year-old patient's back pain. The scan allegedly revealed a possible malignancy in the right lung.