Cedars Sinai Radiation Overdose - Buyers beware

[Vlad]

Regarding the recent SNAFU at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles:

"According to the Associated Press, officials at Cedars-Sinai said on Friday that 206 patients got eight times the regular dose of radiation during CT brain scans, which are used to diagnose strokes. According to the FDA alert, patients involved in these incidents had received radiation doses of 3-4 Gy to the head, rather than the expected dose of 0.5 Gy (maximum).
The machine at Cedars-Sinai had been set at the higher level since February 2008, the Associated Press said, but the mistake had not been detected for 18 months. According to the Medical Center, the overdoses were discovered in August, when a patient reported hair loss. Other patients had also suffered hair loss and skin reddening. Cedars-Sinai has notified all patients who received the overexposure and provided resources for additional information.

In its alert, the FDA said it was concerned that the radiation overdosing “may reflect more widespread problems with CT quality assurance programs and may not be isolated to this particular facility or this imaging procedure (CT brain perfusion). If patient doses are higher than the expected level, but not high enough to produce obvious signs of radiation injury, the problem may go undetected and unreported, putting patients at increased risk for long-term radiation effects.â€

[webmaster]

That never happened while I was servicing the 9800 GE scanner for 1 and a half years.
No technician on my team wanted to service that scanner.
I was the chosen one, and, for 1 1/2 years I kept it up as much as I could.
No complaints from Cedars Sinai hospital, whatsoever.

I was with RSquared at the time. The rest is history.