(Photo: Toshiba)
Representatives for Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center are blaming Toshiba medical devices for radiation overdoses 18 patients received from CT scans.
Hospital officials say they programmed the scanners according to the manufacturer’s instructions, according to the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Stephanie Hall, chief medical officer at LA County-USC, said they called Toshiba to get the exact protocol. Bakersfield Memorial president Jon Van Boening said “the dosage guidelines provided by Toshiba were strictly followed.”
Yet high doses of radiation were found in patients who had brain scans conducted at the two hospitals with Toshiba medical-imaging devices. Toshiba said it could not comment on the situation because of an ongoing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation. None of the patients are believed to have suffered serious injuries from the scans.
FDA spokesman Dick Thompson said the regulatory agency has been investigating this and similar situations involving radiation overdoses for the past 10 months, according to the Contra Costa Times. Last year, two other Los Angeles area hospitals reported CT scan radiation overdoses from devices manufactured by General Electric. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center reported 269 cases in which patients received up to eight times the normal dosage during a period of more than a year. Glendale Adventist Medical Center reported 10 cases involving three to four times the normal dose.
In February, the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance said manufacturers would begin installing safety control upgrades on scanners to alert medical professionals if a dose is too high.
The trial attorneys at Blackman Legal Group, a California-based law firm founded by renowned trial attorney Clifford Blackman, have been representing injury victims since 1976, and have special expertise in cases involving defective medical devices. The nationwide toll-free number to call for a free consultation is 1-866-692-8126.
