FW: Fluoro times (Second try)

["JOHN JACOBUS" <JENDAY1@email.msn.com>]

I am resending this as the "From" bug cut it off too soon.  Sorry for the
reposting. -- 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.

xFrom both procedures, Perer said, Nicklow had been exposed to radiation
that was equivalent to 50,000 chest X-rays.

Perer said the Food and Drug Administration had sent out a warning in 1994
about the dangers of radiation burns during long angioplasty procedures.

David Johnson, the attorney for West Penn, said the hole in Nicklow's back
developed after a biopsy of the rash was taken and may have been the result
of that procedure.

Perer presented testimony from two nuclear physicists and one cardiologist
who said the prolonged exposure to the radiation from the X-rays not only
caused the radiation burn but increased his risk of cancer.

Kharma's attorney, Lynn Bell, called the $1 million verdict unfair and said
 the doctor would appeal.

"What happened was he had a very technically difficult procedure. It took
longer than anticipated and had a superb outcome from the cardiac
perspective," Bell said.

She said that Nicklow already had a high chance of contracting cancer
before anything was done to his heart.

"He was a two- to three-pack-a-day smoker," she said. "He already had a
substantial risk of developing cancer. He didn't quit smoking. He did
nothing to decrease his own risk."

Johnson said the hospital would also appeal the verdict.

Perer said Nicklow, who had worked as a steel worker and a laborer, hasn't
worked for years because of his heart problems. He said if Nicklow does
receive the money from the verdict he has a modest goal: His wife, Rose
Nicklow, has
been sick with cancer, Perer said, and Robert Nicklow wants to move her out
of
their trailer and into a small house he hopes to buy for her.




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