I spent a little time around one of these when I was writing some software to export calcium scores into a customized program I wrote for patient use in follow up and to help drill down and keep track of all the high score patients. There is regular maintenance required and that is from the engineering side to ensure these units are operating properly and the PC side requires a special video/imaging card, different than what you find on a normal pc. New versions may differ today. It is somewhat strange that it went for such a long period of time before being detected, but again it was only the brain scan procedures that were the issues with radiation, and during the time span covered here, there were maintenance visits for sure.
CT Brain Scans At Cedars-Sinai investigated – Dosage Settings Too High
I remember reading somewhere along the line where the machine had been “rebooted” and the specific levels had not been reset for the the brain scans, but that may or may not be the case. The class action suit has to do with medical malpractice, strict product liability, negligence, breach of express warranty, and breach of implied warranty. One of the first patients scanned was very upset to learn about it on television and not from the hospital, who did call him as a follow up to see if he had any side effects from the procedure.
The FDA is now recommending that after the scan the setting be checked to ensure the right dose has been given. This could also be helped along with software configurations before scan begin too with a screen that requires the tech to verify the settings before a scan could take place. BD
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and GE Healthcare related to patients who may have been overexposed to radiation during CT brain perfusion scans at the Los Angeles hospital.
The lawsuit was filed on October 19 in Los Angeles Superior Court against Cedars-Sinai, GE Healthcare, and GE Healthcare Technologies on behalf of patients who may have received up to eight times the standard radiation dose for CT brain perfusion scans at the facility from February 2008 to August 2009. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Trevor Rees, who received two CT scans at Cedars-Sinai for stroke in December 2008.
The overexposure case came to light on October 8, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it was investigating a case at an unnamed hospital in which 206 patients allegedly received too much radiation during CT brain scans. Several days later, Cedars-Sinai acknowledged that it was the subject of the probe.
http://www.auntminnie.com/index.asp?Sec=sup&Sub=cto&Pag=dis&ItemId=87696
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