Opinion
October 26, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Bronx County (Luis Gonzalez, J.).
There is no merit to defendant's contention that the continuous treatment doctrine is inapplicable in cases involving a failure to diagnose cancer ( see, Djordjevic v. Wickham, 200 A.D.2d 421; Garcia-Alano v. Guttman Breast Diagnostic Inst., 188 A.D.2d 262). The relevant issue in such a case is not whether there has been a diagnosis, but whether the ongoing treatment is related to the cancerous condition that gave rise to the lawsuit ( see, McDermott v. Torre, 56 N.Y.2d 399, 405, quoting Borgia v. City of New York, 12 N.Y.2d 151, 155). Such was clearly the case here. The decedent, in the three years preceding the diagnosis of throat cancer, had received treatment on many occasions for interrelated ear, nose and throat symptoms that indicated throat cancer. She had visited defendants only once during that period for an ailment that was entirely unrelated to those symptoms ( compare, Nykorchuck v. Henriques, 78 N.Y.2d 255).
Concur — Sullivan, J.P., Rosenberger, Ross, Asch and Nardelli, JJ.