Personal Injury Law

The New York Times Exposes Radiation Errors in New York Hospitals

By Paul Napoli

January 24, 2010

An article by The New York Times yesterday revealed startling results of an investigation into radiation treatment errors at New York hospitals and illustrated two cases with tragic consequences. The article also exposed the lack of radiation error reporting regulations and government or industry oversight.

The New York Times studied public and private records and interviewed physicians, medical physicists, researchers and government regulators for the article and found that, 'While this new technology allows doctors to more accurately attack tumors and reduce certain mistakes, its complexity has created new avenues for error — through software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures or inadequate staffing and training. When those errors occur, they can be crippling.' Read the New York Times article in its entirety here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/health/24radiation.html

Their investigation found 621 mistakes involving radiation treatment errors from 2001 to 2008 at hospitals in New York State. The article states that in 133 of the cases, the devices used to shape or modulate radiation beams were left out, wrongly positioned or otherwise misused. In 284 cases, the investigation found radiation missed all or part of its intended target or treated the wrong body part entirely, including radioactive seeds implanted in the wrong location, patients receiving the wrong treatment or receiving treatment specified for another patient instead of their own.

In one case, the staff at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan failed to verify that a patient's treatment instructions saved correctly when the linear accelerator software repeatedly crashed. The treatment error caused wide exposure of a high-energy radiation beam to the head and neck of a patient undergoing radiation treatment for tongue cancer, instead of focusing the beam and specifically targeting the cancer cells. The computer screens showed that the beam was wide open, but therapists did not notice. The error should have been found when a physicist runs a test before the first treatment, but the machine was not tested until after the third dose due to hospital understaffing. St. Vincent's Hospital marketed the hospital's Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, or I.M.R.T. linear accelerator using tongue cancer as an example of how the machine could more precisely shape and modulate the radiation beam to target the cancer cells and minimize exposure to healthy tissue. Instead of curing this patient's cancer, the radiation exposure caused painful injury that lead to his death.

In another case, a 32-year-old woman with breast cancer received three times the recommended dosage of radiation during all 27 scheduled treatments at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn because a therapist incorrectly programmed the linear accelerator. The machine was supposed to use a wedge, a sort of filter, but the programming lacked the command. Staff did not catch the error while performing weekly checks of treatment records and therapists never noticed their computer screens showed the wedge was missing. The hospital did not realize the error until it investigated the cause of a sore on the patient's chest, which developed into a gaping burn hole that refused to heal. While undergoing painful treatments for the wound, her cancer returned and proved fatal.

Hospital negligence can result in serious injuries and even deaths. If you have been injured as the result of negligence while you were a patient in a hospital, or if a loved one died due to hospital negligence, you may be able to file a claim and collect compensation for pain and suffering, lost wages, medical expenses and other losses. Some of the most common forms of hospital negligence include wrong-site surgeries, medication errors, surgical errors, development of hospital-acquired infections, improper use of anesthesia, improper treatment of a diagnosed medical condition, failure to monitor or stabilize a patient, or improper use of a medical device. Call Napoli Bern Ripka, LLP at 888-529-4669 today to discuss your legal options.

Full post as published by New York City Personal Injury Lawyer on January 24, 2010 (boomark / email).