West Virginia Hospital Overradiated Patients, Federal Records Show

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In spite of Congressional hearings about CT scan overradiations and a Food and Drug Administration final report discussing the dangers of CT scan overradiation, a federal report shows that a West Virginia hospital continued to administer excess radiation to CT scan patients suspect of suffering strokes. Officials at Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington West Virginia knew about of the excess radiation cases but didn’t publicly disclose the problem until the NY Times called the hospital late last week. The hospital issued a news release about the problem within hours of being contacted by the Times.
CT scan excess radiation has been well documented the past year. The NY Times ran a front-page story last year concerning patients who’ve been injured by overradiation. According to the NY Times, “Problems with the procedure, called a CT brain perfusion scan, first began to surface in the summer of 2009 at Cedars-Sinai, and then later at several other hospitals. These errors set off an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration into why patients tested with this complex yet lightly regulated technology were being overradiated.
The Food and Drug Administration’s final report, issued Nov. 9, 2010, said that most of the overdoses were a result of user error. However, it also said that manufacturers should do a better job of training and educating those who use their equipment and that their machines should have a more effective way of warning operators when radiation levels are too high.”

Jared Green
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