Philadelphia Personal Injury Lawyers Blog

Radiation has become a significant tool in diagnosing and treating patients. Radiation is routinely used to treat cancer and many of the routine diagnostic imaging tests use radiation to discover what is ailing patients. Complications and injuries occur when patients are unnecessarily over exposed to radiation.

Radiation battles cancer by eliminating the cancerous tumor. It kills the genetic material that allows cells to grow and multiply. With all radiation treatments, radiation must enter and exit the body through healthy tissue causing damage to the area surrounding the tumor. Typical injuries associated with radiation include redness, soreness, and skin burns comparable to sun burn. Injuries that occur from over radiation are much more severe and include damaging the blood vessels that provide nourishment to the skin. Over radiation destroys healthy cells creating severe wounds that are unlikely to heal. After soft tissue damage, over radiation can cause bone death most commonly in the head and the jaw. Finally, over exposure to radiation can lead to organ failure and death.

Patients suffering from severe and repeated over exposure to radiation have suffered crippling injuries with the majority ending in death. A woman with breast cancer underwent targeted radiation treatments and suffered a gaping wound in her chest that refused to heal even after numerous attempts through surgery to cure the injury. Eventually the woman died when her breast cancer resurfaced because the radiation was not effectively treating the disease.

Another man was left blind, death, unable to swallow, severely burned, nauseated and unable to breathe after several repeated doses of radiation that was not targeted to his tumor. Patients are receiving inappropriate doses of radiation in the wrong areas of the body with some receiving treatments specifically designed for other patients. With radiation there is always some damage to healthy tissue but the injuries should never be crippling or life threatening. Unusual injuries should be immediately reported to doctors before it is too late. In today's health care it is almost impossible to avoid radiation but radiation is a tool doctors to diagnose and treat not harm and kill.

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Radiation Offers New Cures, and Ways to Do Harm

Philadelphia cancer patients and others across the country undergoing targeted radiation treatments to beat cancer may actually be harming their bodies and causing severe and permanent injuries.

Targeted radiation treatments allow doctors to more efficiently and accurately attack a tumor; however studies have shown that this new form of radiation has opened the door to more frequent and severe errors. Software glitches, inexperienced technicians, and the lack of a failsafe are just some of the factors that are causing patients to suffer unjustly from overexposure of radiation.

People are exposed to more radiation than ever before and over half of all cancer patients undergo some sort of radiation to diagnose or treat the disease. A new type of radiation called Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy or I.M.R.T. is a directed beam of radiation that doctors can lead directly to the patient's tumor. This new technology can help spare healthy cells and allow doctors to treat patients with radiation where it would have been too risky in the past.

The I.M.R.T. is completely computer controlled. With the help of an oncologist software designs a treatment specific to each patient set to undergo the radiation. Oncologists can selected the designed treatment or work with the software to modify it. Next the technician or oncologist responsible for administering the radiation enters the dose of the radiation, followed by the location of treatment and finally prompts the machine to guide the radiation directly to the tumor.

While there is no failsafe system installed in the machines there are still opportunities for medical physicists to notice and prevent any radiation mistakes before they occur. First a test run is supposed to be conducted to ensure that the radiation amount and location are accurate. Second, during the radiation the monitor of the machine displays the amount and location of radiation but these monitors are not always watched as the technician usually focuses their attention on the patient.

Doctors are relying too heavily on the computer software when administering I.M.R.T. and failing to notice the signs the treatment is not appropriate for their patients. The software has no failsafe system to ensure that the doctors and technicians are administering the radiation properly and not causing serious and permanent harm to patients. Unfortunately for patients the risks and injuries of this new technology are currently outshining the benefits and healing capabilities.

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Radiation Offers New Cures, and Ways to Do Harm