Next, he endured an uncomfortable half-hour MRI scan and other tests to find out if the cancer had spread. It was a long, long weekend. By Monday, he was going slightly crazy. Doctors call it the sleepless-nights problem. When something serious is at stake, every extra day spent waiting for test results can be agonizing.
Doctors are busy, and labs get backed up.
And some doctors may not be aware of how much a patient is worrying, if it hasn't been said. In the case of the patient with prostate cancer, Barry says that a week's wait for results is reasonable, especially because his doctor needed to compile data from several different tests. In part, says Barry, sleepless nights are the price we pay for the rise of screening tests, like mammograms, PSA prostate tests, and colorectal cancer tests. Sometimes these tests pick up an abnormality that can't be diagnosed precisely without further testing, and even then, the answer may be cloudy. In breast cancer screening, for example, mammography exams now are generally able to give a result almost immediately, or at least the same day, says Dr. Leslie Vensel of General Medical Associates at Mass. General.