Every year, approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. suffer from heart attacks.  A heart attack occurs when blood flow is blocked and unable to reach the heart.

Studies show that doctors misdiagnose about 2 percent of heart attacks.  This means thousands of heart attacks are misdiagnosed every year.  When a heart attack is misdiagnosed, patients are likely to experience serious or possibly fatal injuries.

Most often, a patient will go into the hospital with unusual chest pain or tightness in the chest.  If a doctor is unable to find signs of a heart attack after testing the patient, they will recommend taking aspirin.  The patient is then likely to go into cardiac arrest, which often proves fatal.

Research shows that doctors generally misdiagnose heart attacks because they made an error when reading test results, did not perform the appropriate tests, or waited to see how the patient’s condition developed.

If you or a loved one suffered a heart attack and it was misdiagnosed by a medical professional, contact the Philadelphia heart attack lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about filing a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld a medical malpractice decision awarding $5.2 million to the widow of a man who died from a misdiagnosed heart attack.

The jury agreed with a previous ruling that a Wyomissing internal medicine doctor was negligent in failing to diagnose the man with a heart attack despite displaying symptoms of a heart attack like pain in the chest and jaw and anxiety.

The man was also described as being overweight and suffered from high cholesterol and high blood pressure.  In addition, the man had a family medical history including heart disease.

When the man went to see the doctor, he was diagnosed with anxiety and sent home.  He called the doctor 4 days later with the same problems.  By the time the doctor returned his call, he was in cardiac arrest caused by a heart attack that occurred days earlier.

If you or a loved one has had a misdiagnosed heart attack, contact the Philadelphia heart attack attorneys of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about your rights as a patient.

According to a study conducted by researchers at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the severity of chest pain and the duration of chest pain are not indicators of a heart attack.

In analyzing the severity of chest pain on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being no chest pain and 10 being the worst, in 3,300 patients, researchers found that patients with more severe or longer-lasting chest pain were not more likely to suffer a heart attack within 30 days than patients with less severe or less long-lasting chest pain.

However, authors of the study note that just because chest pain is severe or long-lasting does not mean that it is not a symptom of a heart attack.  Furthermore, they say that often times chest pain is not the only indicator of a heart attack and that pain from a heart attack can also be located in the arms, abdomen, back, and jaw.

Between 2 and 5 percent of patients experiencing heart attacks are misdiagnosed and wrongly discharged from hospitals.  For this reason, about 30 percent of medical malpractice payments are made to victims of the failure to diagnose a heart attack.

Contact the Philadelphia heart attack lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 today, if you or someone you love suffered a heart attack and was misdiagnosed.