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Fluoro times
I received this and thought it would be worth passing along.
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Health Physicist
National Institutes of Health
Radiation Safety Branch, Building 21
21 Wilson Drive, MSC 6780
Bethesda, MD 20892-6780
Phone: 301-496-5774 Fax: 301-496-3544
jjacobus@ors.od.nih.gov (W)
jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
-----Original Message-----
From: Karam, Andrew [mailto:Andrew_Karam@urmc.rochester.edu]
Sent: May 23, 2000 4:05 PM
To: 'AMRSO'
Subject: AMRSO: Fluoro times
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette May 22, 2000
Heart patient wins $1 million in suit against hospital, doctor
Monday, May 22, 2000
By Ann Belser, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
When Robert Nicklow went in for an angioplasty in 1996 he didn't know one
of the side effects could be a radiation burn.
The chances of such burns were so low that cardiologists didn't even warn
him about the radiation they would use to see into the heart with X-rays
during the procedure.
But Nicklow's procedure was long and complex. As a result, after two
angioplasty procedures, he developed a hole in his back from the amount of
radiation used.
On Friday, a jury awarded Nicklow, 61, of Leisenring, Fayette County, $1
million, with 90 percent to come from his doctor, Bassam Kharma, and the
other 10 percent from the Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Bloomfield where
Nicklow
had the procedures.
The verdict came after a two-week trial in front of Allegheny County Common
Pleas Judge Paul F. Lutty.
All sides in the lawsuit agreed that Nicklow had a complex angioplasty.
The procedure is done by running a tube from the groin to the arteries in
the heart. The cardiologist uses the X-rays to determine where that tube is
in the heart.
Nicklow's first procedure, on Oct. 1, 1996, lasted 51/2 hours. Four hours
into it, Kharma called in another doctor who helped complete the
angioplasty.
Within a month of that angioplasty, Nicklow had developed a burn on his
back like a sunburn, which, by January 1997, developed into a rash.
On Feb. 24, 1997, he had another angioplasty. That time, the procedure
lasted 31/2 hours, his attorney, Alan Perer, said. Later, the rash on
Nicklow's back developed into an open hole that a dermatologist diagnosed as
a radiation burn, Perer said.