The medical community is waking up to an enormous problem with radiation – mainly X-rays and CT scans – used to diagnose disease and injury. Patients are getting too much radiation, and the excess itself causes injuries, many years down the road, in a big uptick in the risk of cancer. Even a “routine” CT….
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Doctor who botched prostate cancer brachytherapy procedures at VA hospital sanctioned
A physician who gave nearly 100 veterans with prostate cancer incorrect doses of radiation has been sanctioned by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The errors involved the incorrect placement of iodine-125 seeds in patients to treat prostate cancer. Out of 116 such brachytherapy procedures performed at the facility between 2002 and 2008, the VA reported….
Continue ReadingStudy casts doubt on effectiveness of routine lymph node removal in some women with early breast cancer
Many women with early breast cancer do not need to have their armpit lymph nodes removed, according to a new study. Currently, this painful procedure has long been routine, as physicians believed it would prolong women’s lives by keeping the cancer from spreading or coming back. However, the study shows that removing the cancerous lymph….
Continue ReadingRadiation Therapy Malpractice: A Deadly Combination of Errors
Why do patients who need focused, precise doses of radiation get walloped with huge overdoses that cause serious and even fatal injuries? A deadly combination of non-user-friendly radiation equipment, incompatible software when machines from different manufacturers are cobbled together, user error by the technicians administering the radiation, and lax regulation by federal authorities: All these….
Continue ReadingFDA Tightens Safety Rules for Radiation Therapy Machines
The Food and Drug Administration has canceled its policy of giving rubber-stamp approval to marketing of powerful new radiation therapy equipment like linear accelerators. From now on, the manufacturer of the machine is going to have to prove the equipment has proper safety checks to prevent dangerous overdoses of radiation to patients. The New York….
Continue ReadingFDA Has New Initiative on Excessive Radiation to Patients
The scandal about injuries to cancer patients from malpractice in radiation therapy has had one beneficial side effect: the Food and Drug Administration is gaining urgency and attention for its new initiative to reduce unnecessary radiation in diagnostic imaging of patients. Here is a link to the FDA’s White Paper on its steps to make….
Continue ReadingBetter Care with the Tried and True, or the Seduction of the New?
Time and again in U.S. health care, new technologies are hurried into wide use with little testing, scant training of their human operators, and lack of solid evidence that newer really is better. After the flush of optimism has faded, billions of dollars later, we learn how to judiciously use the new equipment, but only….
Continue ReadingPreventing Malpractice in Radiation Therapy
What can cancer patients do to protect themselves from malpractice in radiation therapy? This urgent question arises from a lengthy series of investigative reports in the New York Times. The articles exposed serious patient injuries that stem from therapists who are overwhelmed and inexperienced, lax regulation and indifference by hospital administrators. A key part of….
Continue ReadingMalpractice in Radiation Therapy: Hideous Injuries from Lack of Simple Checklists
More evidence of the urgent need for “checklists” to protect patient safety in complex medical treatments comes with a long article in the New York Times about terrible injuries from malpractice episodes during radiation therapy. Yet readers have to dive deep into the article to find this key point. Scott Jerome-Parks suffered terrible radiation burns….
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