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Newer Radiation Technologies Increase Chances of Medical Injury

The New York Times is running a series of reports on increasing instances of radiation errors that have left patients seriously injured and facing premature death.

Patients in California and California personal injury lawyers are no strangers to the high risks of injury from over dosage of radiation therapy. Last year, Cedars Sinai Medical Center admitted that there had been dozens of cases of radiation overdoses at the hospital. Patients were administrated radiation overdoses that were up to 8 times the normal dose. According to the hospital, the errors occurred in February 2008 when hospital officials began using new protocols in scans used for the diagnosis of strokes. The CT scanner was set erroneously, causing dozens of patients to be exposed to the dramatic overdoses. Shockingly enough, Cedars-Sinai never even noticed the errors until August of 2009 when a stroke patient informed hospital officials that he had begun to notice hair loss after a scan. The hospital then examined its records, and found that out of 206 people who had received the overdose, 40 percent had suffered hair loss, while others noticing reddening of the skin.

As the New York Times report shows, such errors are much more common than patients know.  The report titled “Radiation Offers Cures and Ways to do Harm” focuses on two patients who have since died from the injuries they sustained from radiation overdoses. In the first case, cancer patient Scott Jerome-Parks received a radiation blast to his brain stem and neck. Staff at St. Vincent’s hospital which had been treating Jerome Parks for tongue cancer, failed to notice a computer error that caused a linear accelerator to erroneously send out beams of radiation to his brain stem and neck.  The error occurred not just once, but on three consecutive days. The computer error caused the multiple collimators which were meant to focus the radiation beam especially on his tumor, to be left wide open. That means that Jerome-Parks’ entire neck had been exposed to radiation he didn’t require. All in all, Jerome Parks received 7 times his prescribed radiation dose.

Jerome-Parks died in 2007. At the time of his death, he was nearly blind, deaf, had painful ulcers and was in terrible pain. He was unable to swallow, and his teeth were falling out.

These linear accelerators are part of a new generation of cancer treatment equipment that allow radiation beams to be focused only on the cancerous region, while leaving the non cancerous region untouched. Before these technologies, radiation therapy could not be used in several cases where there was a danger of cell damage to nearby healthy cells. Unfortunately, the highly complex computerized equipment that is used for such targeted radiation therapy has been designed with few safeguards to prevent errors. It’s stunning that he machine could deliver that kind of massive radiation because of incorrect programming. There has been an overly heavy reliance on these machines which are still new, and there has been a failure to train staff to use these machines properly. It’s innocent patients like Scott Jerome-Parks who have suffered.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of personal injury. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

The Reeves Law Group is not acting as legal counsel for any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

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One response to “Newer Radiation Technologies Increase Chances of Medical Injury”

1. Gene Burke writes:
   

   Ooops. Please disregard most of my previous comment.

   Your “full comment” I had not seen until now.

   I now see that you did, thank goodness, emphasize the radiation therapy aspect.

   However, maybe you could have gone a little heavier on the cover-up aspect which journalist Walt Bogdanich underscored quite heavily.

   Many thanks for your consumer representation as plaintiff attorneys.

   @ June 23rd, 2010 at 11:34