The Food and Drug Administration has launched an investigation to reports that patients in Philadelphia hospitals and other hospitals nationwide have been over exposed to radiation during routine tests and procedures.
A typical CT scan exposes patients to radiation levels about equal to 400 X-rays but reports have surfaced that in some cases patients have received radiation levels equivalent of 3,200 X-rays. None of the patients knew about the overexposure until they begun to lose their hair.
The increasing popularity and effectiveness of diagnostic tests that involve radiation has exposed more people to more radiation then in the past. In the last thirty years a typical person's exposure to medical radiation has increased seven-fold. Ionizing radiation, which is used in imaging exams, increases the patient's lifetime cancer risk and can also cause skin burns, hair loss and cataracts.
The FDA is increasing oversight into CT scans, nuclear medicine studies, and fluoroscopies. CT scans are the most common form of radiation imaging that provides medical professionals with 3-dimensional images of the bodies. In a nuclear medicine study a radioactive substance is passed through the patient's body and monitored by doctors and a fluoroscopy is a diagnostic tool that provides doctors with a continuous internal image through the help of a radiation-emitting device.
Currently there are no indicators on any radiation emitting device that informs doctors or technologists that the patient is receiving inappropriate amounts of radiation. The industry has failed to implement a failsafe system and unfortunately patients are paying the price.
