Radiation Accident

[Mulletfluf]

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050402/ap_on_he_me/radiation_overdoses

Did anyone else come across this article? I was wondering if anyone had anymore details. This accident seems as serious as the malfunction 54 accident two decades ago, if not more so.

 

[user_name]

I saw on a different article it was on their BrainLab system for stereotactic surgery. It seems it was only used on brain mets, so I bet they are hoping (yes this is as bad as it sounds) that their disease gets them before the side effects do. One article, perhaps the same, quoted an MDA doc saying it may not be too bad because they are so "precise" in their delivery. I don't think I would trust their precision at this point. Usually the physicist is HIGHLY involved in SRS everywhere I have rotated. Probably the same physicist who made the miscalculation.

 

[stephew]

beleive me there have been far worse horrors out there. This is terrible of course but I think user_name is right. Their disease is worse. The issue isn't the precision of the set up in this case as I understand; it was in the measurement of the output of the machine. The thinking is that higher doses in this case just isn't as bad as if it was external beam since its just tumor with near exclusion of nl tissue (not exactly true from a dosimetry stand point). But many benign tumors are treated as well, avm, meningioma etc. I think they should publish the SE from this. Its terrible and the reason why double checking of physics issues is so important.