It appears that a hospital screwed up doing CT brain scans, even after federal regulators put out warnings telling medical facilities to be more careful performing that very procedure.
Cabell Huntington Hospital in West Virginia is the facility that overradiated patients during CT scans for more than a year after the Food and Drug Administration had already issued an alert after uncovering similar incidents regarding that particular scan, according to The New York Times.
The Times dug up records that disclosed that the West Virginia hospital had allegedly been overdosing patients with radiation until the end of November.
At least 20 of the patients, who were overradiated as they were checked for strokes, have retained a lawyer. These patients got a letter from the hospital saying that they had been given too much radiation.
The procedure in question is a CT brain perfusion scan, and issues with it first came to light in summer 2009 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to The Times. The FDA launched a study on why some patients were getting too much radiation during the procedure.
The FDA issued its report on the matter last November, finding that manufacturers needed to better train medical staff to use the complex equipment used in the CT scans. The report also recommended that the CT machines have a better sysem to tell technicians when the radiation they are dispensing is at too high a level.
In one case in West Virginia cited by The Times, Marcie Iseli, 36, lost sections of her hair after having a CT procedure in November. She went for the CT because she had been feeling numbness on one side of her face. According to The Times, Iseli had been given 10 times too much radiation, and felt nauseated after her CT.
The manufacturer who made the CT equipment is G.E. Medical Systems. And it’s doubtful this is the last time we’ll be hearing that name.
