The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is seeking to improve safety measures and reduce the amount of radiation that patients are exposed to when having X-rays and CT (computed tomography) scans. The action comes after 300 patients were exposed to toxic levels of radiation at hospitals in Los Angeles and Alabama last fall.
Three hundred patients at four hospitals – Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Providence St. Joseph Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles County California and Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama – were exposed to toxic levels of radiation last fall after undergoing CT scans. Although the consequences of their exposures are still unknown, medical experts say that high doses of radiation can cause cancer, skin burns, cataracts and even death. They say that radiation overdose injuries are often caused by faulty medical devices and technicians that use those devices incorrectly. These hospital radiation exposures have prompted the FDA to call a public meeting at the end of March to address these issues.
The FDA's initiative seeks to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure from three types of medical imaging procedures: computed tomography (CT), nuclear medicine studies and fluoroscopy (a “continuous” x-ray procedure), which are thought to be the greatest contributors to total radiation exposure within the U.S. population and use much higher radiation doses than other radiographic procedures, such as standard X-rays, dental X-rays and mammography. In fact, the Administration and radiation overdose attorneys say that some CT scans, such as those used to view the abdomen, provide nearly 400 times the radiation of a chest x-ray and can be deadly.
Although the FDA is ultimately responsible for approving medical devices, medical experts say that the oversight for radiation dosing is largely fragmented – which has left thousands of patients at increased risks of serious injury or death. In the meantime, industry group Medical Imaging & Technology has said that it will begin putting safeguards into place that would affect medical devices made by General Electric, Toshiba Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Siemens and Philips.