Marci Farber attempt radiosurgery to address a pain from a nervus late in her principal . Today , she ’s “ in a breast feeding home , nearly comatose , unable to speak , eat or walk . ” What fall out ? The radiation sickness slay places it was n’t supposed to .
Her level , reported intoday ’s NYT , is far from an obscure incident , and it speaks to the dangers faced when hospital struggle to keep their technology updated for the most cutting edge procedures .
Stereotactic radiosurgery ( SRS ) is a tight - growing radioactivity therapy in which tumors in the brain or spine are knock down with an intensely concentrated beam of radiation . For such handling , some hospitals have invested in $ 3 million dollar twist called the Gamma Knife , designed specifically for SRS . But at other hospitals where the patient demand does not justify the Gamma Knife ’s toll , linear gun , machines used for standard radiation therapy , have been retrofitted for SRS treatment , in many case being compound with parts from various unlike companies . When used correctly , these change motorcar can dish out SRS without payoff — it ’s an attractive option to more encroaching surgeries because it can be perform as an outpatient subprogram and in some case can be dispatch in just one day — but converting linear accelerators into SRS - ready machines is a process with potentiality for highly harmful wrongdoing :
Linear accelerators can be adapted to perform stereotactic radiosurgery in two way : with small computer - controlled metallic element leaves that determine the beam , or with a strobilus attached to the auto ’s opening through which actinotherapy is drive home . That initiative is made little or larger by go four heavy metal “ jaws ” that form the beam into a square toes . When a cone fond regard is used , the square beam must fit altogether within the perimeter of the cone . If the square is slightly larger than the cone , radiation will leak out through the four corners of the jaws and irradiate healthy tissue . In the Evanston accidents , record show , the beam was four times too large .
The Evanston accidents come to to Marci Farber and and two other patients who were overdosed with radiation therapy by the same faulty car . And they ’re far from the only ones : Earlier this year , CoxHealth , a infirmary in Springfield , MO , harbinger that it had overradiated 76 patient during SRS treatment , due to equipment that had been set up wrongly . The NYT outlines a “ complicated matrix of electronic computer systems and communicating flaws”—in both the companies that make the equipment and the infirmary that utilize it — responsible for the incorrectly calibrated machines .
While these incidents are far from the norm , the problem is exacerbate by a universal deficiency of regulatory oversight with respect to modified linear atom smasher . Where the Gamma Knife , which apply its own radioactive isotope , is regulated strictly by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission , linear throttle valve are overseen by the FDA , which approve the alter machines with little scrutiny because they were deemed extensions of existing technology . what is more , the FDA does n’t involve hospital to submit linear accelerator accident cover to a fundamental database , which has made it unmanageable to connect these various accidents and nail their causes .
TheNYT has more on the problematic machines , and on the patients who have been ravage by them . [ NYT ]
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