Cancer Expert Says Glicklich Did Not Receive Proper Care

If cancer patient Gena Glicklich had received proper treatment from her doctors after discovering a lump in her right breast, her life expectancy would be much higher, a cancer expert testified yesterday during malpractice proceedings against two University Health Services (UHS) physicians and Glicklich's personal gynecologist.

Testifying on behalf of Glicklich, who is suing the three doctors for $370.000, Dr. Guy Robbins, former head of the Sloan-kettering cancer center in New York, told the jury that Glicklich's doctors should have urged her to have a biopsy.

Robbins, the second cancer expert Glicklich's attorney. Clyde Bergstresser, has called to the witness stand since the proceedings began last Wednesday, said that if Glicklich had undergone a biopsy when she first noticed her lump in 1978, she would have had a 94-per-cent chance of living for at least ten years.

Doctors have predicted that Glicklich, whose cancer has spread to her brain, may die within nine months.

Glicklich testified yesterday that none of the doctors recommended a biopsy which Robbins said "is the only sure way to dtermine if a lump is cancerous."

Questioning the X-ray

In testimony last week, Dr. Alan Spievack, one of the UHS physicians named in the suit, said he advised Glicklich to have a mammogrem x-ray test, adding that the results of the test convinced him that the lump was not cancerous.

Robbins, however, said that Spievack should not have based his diagnosis on the X-ray test, which he said often yields inaccurate results. Robbins also criticized the conduct of another defendant, Dr. Joan Golub, a private gynecologist Glicklich first consulted after discovering the lump in 1978.

The Initial Finding

Golub initially performed a needle aspiration on Glicklich, which determined that the lump was solid, rather than fluid. Fluid cysts are common and are usually not cancerous, while firm lumps are potentially cancerous.

Golub testified last week that despite her findings, she did not urge Glicklich to undergo a biopsy.

When Glicklich went to UHS in September, 1978, after enrolling in the Graduate School of Education, Golub did not inform doctors there that the lump in Glicklich's breast was firm, the gynecologist also testified.

Robbins said yesterday that failure to forward this type of information is "below standard and accepted practice" for doctors.