Radiation overexposure from medical procedures has become an increasing concern in the past several months, beginning in November when the FDA issued an alert. It’s investigation found CT machines made by General Electric and Toshiba hadn’t been calibrated correctly and were giving patients an overdose of radiation.

More recently, it has been reported that children have an increased chance of developing leukemia from diagnostic X-rays and heart patients have a risk of cancer from cardiac imaging.

See the presentation below to learn more about radiation overexposure.

At a public hearing on the issue the scientist said he “objected to exposing otherwise healthy patients to the cancer risks of radiation” and that “scientific and regulatory review process for medical devices was being distorted by managers who were not following the laws,” quoted Healthier Talk.

Excess radiation can pose significant health threats, both immediately—especially in the case of an overdose from a single scan—and in the long-term, following routine CT scans and mammograms, noted Healthier Talk. For instance, said Healthier Talk, citing the New York Times, a hospital in Philadelphia gave the incorrect radiation dosage to over 90 prostate cancer patients last year.

In 2005, a hospital in Florida admitted that 77 patients with brain cancer were delivered 50-percent more radiation than prescribed due to a system malfunction that went on for about one year, wrote Healthier Talk. Over 200 patients undergoing CT brain scans at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles received eight-to-ten times the normal dose of radiation due to incorrect machine programming, added Healthier Talk. These are no small issues given that, under normal circumstances, noted USA Today, CT scans deliver more radiation than realized previously and could be a factor in some 29,000 new annual cancers, and 14,500 deaths.

Another study found that radiation exposure could be up to four times as much as noted in prior studies, said USA Today. Based on current measurements, one patient could be receiving the radiation in one CT scan that is equivalent to either 74 mammograms or 442 chest X-rays, wrote USA Today.

Experts feel that while CT scans are an important life-saving medical tool, they may be ordered more often than necessary, explained The Chicago Tribune previously. Overuse of CT scans could be linked to upwards of three million excess cancers in the USA over the next 20-to-30 years, according to a recent study cited by USA Today. “About one-third of all CT scans that are done right now are medically unnecessary,” said David Brenner of Columbia University, lead author of a study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, quoted USA Today.

With emerging research revealing links between cancer and radiation delivered via diagnostic testing, some practices and figures are worrisome. For instance, nationally, the 2008 average for double CT scans of the chest was five percent and for the abdomen was 19 percent, said The Tribune. Consider this, every double chest CT scan exposes the patient to a massive 700 times more radiation than a chest X-ray; double abdominal scans dose the patient with 22 times more radiation, said The Tribune.

According to a prior Associated Press (AP) report, Americans receive the most medical radiation worldwide, with the United States accounting for about half of the more sophisticated procedures using radiation. The AP noted that the average American’s dose has increase six-fold in recent years.

Update 8/2/2010

A New York Times investigation published in July 2010 found that the CT scan radiation overdose scandal was far worse than what the FDA reported. According to the Times, more than 400 people around the country received radiation overdoses during CT brain perfusion scans.

The botched scans occurred at other hospitals not previously mentioned in the FDA alerts. These included: Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center, where one patient received seven and a half times the amount generally used; Bakersfield Memorial Hospital, where 16 people received up to five and a half times too much; South Lake Hospital in central Florida, where an unknown number of patients received 40 percent more than usual; and an unidentified hospital in San Francisco.

The Times piece also shed new light on why these overdoses may have occurred. At Alabama’s Huntsville Hospital, an inspection by GE Healthcare, maker of the scanners used there, found that technicians purposely used high levels of radiation to get clearer images. According to the New York Times, experts have called that practice “unjustified and potentially dangerous.”

At two hospitals that use Toshiba scanners — Los Angeles County-U.S.C. and South Lake in Florida — officials said the manufacturer suggested machine settings that ultimately produced too much radiation.

At Cedars-Sinai, where the overdoses involved machines made by GE Healthcare, officials have blamed the overdoses on a feature that can automatically adjust the dose according to a patient’s size and body part. According to The New York Times, this feature was touted by GE as “a technical innovation that significantly reduces radiation dose.”

Technicians at both Cedars-Sinai and Glendale Adventist utilized this feature for brain perfusion scans, but later found that when used with certain machine settings that govern image clarity, the automatic feature did not reduce the dose — it raised it. The hospitals claim that GE trainers never fully explained the automatic feature. According to The New York Times, Cedars-Sinai said GE never mentioned the “counterintuitive” nature of the automatic feature during multiple training sessions there.

So far, incidents of CT scan radiation overdoses have been uncovered in California, Alabama and Missouri. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) continues to investigate, and it is likely that other states will be added to this list. According to the agency, radiation overdose from CT scans increase the risk for long-term radiation effects including cataracts. Unfortunately, it could be years before the full affects of these botched CT scans become apparent.

Our CT scan injury lawyers are offering free case evaluations to anyone who suspects they received a radiation overdose from a CT perfusion scan. We urge you to contact us today to protect your legal rights.

According to the agency, patients involved in these incidents had received eight times the regular dose of radiation during CT brain scans. They received radiation doses of 3-4 Gy to the head, rather than the expected dose of 0.5 Gy (maximum). The CT scan machines had been set at the higher level since February 2008, but went undetected for 18 months. It wasn’t until patients began complaining of hair loss and skin reddening that the error was found.

In December 2009, the FDA updated its alert after it identified additional people who were exposed to excess radiation of up to eight times the expected level during their CT perfusion scans. More cases were reported at Cedars-Sinai, bringing the total number of incidents there to 260. According to various media reports, the FDA was also investigating 10 incidents at Glendale Adventist Medical Center and an unknown number of cases at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. An unnamed Huntsville, Alabama hospital was also the site of reports, the agency said.

The FDA said it had not yet determined if the radiation overdoses were a result of human error or some sort of equipment problems. The scanners used at Cedars-Sinai and Glendale Adventist were made by General Electric, while those used at other facilities included more than one Toshiba model.

If you suspect that you or someone you love was the victim of a radiation overdose from a botched CT brain scan, it is important that you act now to protect your legal rights. To arrange for a free lawsuit evaluation with one of our experienced CT scan injury lawyers, please fill out our online form or call 1 800 LAW INFO (1-800-529-4636) today.