[ RadSafe ] More than 70 radiation overdoses since 2000

[Fred Dawson]

The Sunday Herald Reports


"SEVENTY patients in Scottish hospitals have been overexposed to radiation 
because of mistakes during procedures such as X-rays and scans in the past 
six years, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
Incidents where patients have been accidentally given radiation in excess of 
safety limits have to be notified to the Scottish Executive. Since 2000, a 
total of 70 cases have been reported, an average of 12 a year. The most in 
one year was in 2004, when there 22 incidents.

The figures come in the wake of the shocking case which emerged last week of 
a teenage girl who was given a potentially fatal overdose of radiation at 
the Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow.

Fifteen-year-old Lisa Norris, from Girvan, Ayrshire, was given radiation 
overdoses 17 times at the Beatson Oncology Centre, where she was being 
treated with radiotherapy for a brain tumour. Human error was blamed for the 
mistake.

The Scottish Executive Health Depart ment has launched an inquiry into the 
case, but officials claimed the 70 other incidents which had been reported 
were not serious enough to warrant similar investigation.

Radiation is used in medicine for both diagnosis and treatment. X-rays and 
CAT scans help diagnose a wide range of health problems, while rad io active 
chemicals are put in the body to find tumours and used, externally and 
internally, to destroy cancers. However, all radiation is potentially 
dangerous, and extra doses can increase the risk of cancer.

On learning of the new cases, politicians yesterday demanded that procedures 
be tightened up to ensure that patients could not be exposed to overdoses of 
radiation.

MSP Shona Robison, health spokes woman for the SNP, said: "There are checks 
in the system, but I think there have to be more robust checks.

"To eliminate human error you need double, triple and maybe even more checks 
of the calculations to pick up any errors."

Eleanor Scott MSP, health speaker for the Green Party, also backed the call 
for better controls to be introduced to avoid such errors. "People must be 
confident that when they are getting treatment they are not going to suffer 
adverse consequences," she said.

A spokesman for the Executive said that mistakes involving over exposure of 
patients to radiation because of procedural errors were reportable to 
Scottish ministers as regulators.

"To date, none of these incidents has been sufficiently serious to warrant 
incident investigation, as they did not pose a significant risk to health," 
he said. "All of these have been reported and followed up by 
 correspondence."

He added: "As the recent incident at the Beatson is different in its 
potential seriousness, it is being followed up with a full incident 
investigation."

Cancer patient Lisa Norris had been told by doctors that her brain tumour 
was gone before receiving the devastating news about the error in her 
treatment. Speaking about the trauma last week, she said: "We don't know 
what's in the future because I could be brain- damaged, I could be 
paralysed.

"Later in the future, in 10 to 15 years, I could not be here. It's just time 
will tell if anything is going to happen."

Health experts and cancer charities insisted last night that mistakes are 
rare during medical procedures which use radiation.

Richard Evans, chief executive officer of the Society of Radiographers, 
pointed out that around 200,000 doses of radiotherapy were given in Scotland 
every year.

"Occasions when errors occur are obviously terrible and very regrettable, 
but they are also very, very rare," he said.

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said 
the Lisa Norris case should not deter cancer patients from undergoing 
radiotherapy. "An overdose like this is extremely rare, so patients 
receiving radiotherapy should not be worried. If they do have concerns, they 
should speak to their consultants," she said. ""



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