[ot] After Stroke Scans, Patients Face Serious Health Risks

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BlankJuly 31, 2010

After Stroke Scans, Patients Face Serious Health Risks

By WALT BOGDANICH

When Alain Reyes’s hair suddenly fell out in a freakish band circling his head,

he was not the only one worried about his health. His co-workers at a shipping

company avoided him, and his boss sent him home, fearing he had a contagious

disease.

Only later would Mr. Reyes learn what had caused him so much physical and

emotional grief: he had received a radiation overdose during a test for a stroke

at a hospital in Glendale, Calif.

Other patients getting the procedure, called a CT brain perfusion scan, were

being overdosed, too — 37 of them just up the freeway at Providence Saint ph

Medical Center in Burbank, 269 more at the renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

in Los Angeles and dozens more at a hospital in Huntsville, Ala.

The overdoses, which began to emerge late last summer, set off an investigation

by the Food and Drug Administration into why patients tested with this complex

yet lightly regulated technology were bombarded with excessive radiation. After

10 months, the agency has yet to provide a final report on what it found.

But an examination by The New York Times has found that radiation overdoses were

larger and more widespread than previously known, that patients have reported

symptoms considerably more serious than losing their hair, and that experts say

they may face long-term risks of cancer and brain damage.

The review also offers insight into the way many of the overdoses occurred.

While in some cases technicians did not know how to properly administer the

test, interviews with hospital officials and a review of public records raise

new questions about the role of manufacturers, including how well they design

their software and equipment and train those who use them.

The Times found the biggest overdoses at Huntsville Hospital — up to 13 times

the amount of radiation generally used in the test.

Officials there said they intentionally used high levels of radiation to get

clearer images, according to an inquiry by the company that supplied the

scanners, GE Healthcare.

Experts say that is unjustified and potentially dangerous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/health/01radiation.html?hp= & pagewanted=print

or http://nyti.ms/aKCQg9