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Re: Radioisotope misadministrations
The report of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commissionon
radioisotope misadministrations in FY1996 actually totaled
13 occurrences in brachytherapy and 7 in nuclear medicine.
I strongly suspect that these are the result of human
error, although use of inadequately trained personnel could
have been a factor. Such accidents are intolerable and all
efforts must be made to eliminate them.
It is informative to put these data in context. It has
been estimated that some 7.5 million nuclear medicine
procedures and about 700,000 brachytherapy procedures are
performed per year in the US. Thus the misadministration
rate (order of magnitude)is about one per million for
nuclear medicine and ten per million for brachytherapy.
These are "small number statistics" and I suspect that
there is no significant difference between these two rates.
I further suspect that these rates are probably lower than
those for misadministration of medicine, either from error
in prescribing by the physician or error in providing the
prescribed medication by the pharmacist.
All possible effort should be made to eliminate these
errors. However, it is unlikely that human perfection can
ever be achieved. We readily accept imperfection in most
human activities--but not medicine.
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S. Julian Gibbs, DDS, PhD Voice: 615-322-3190
Professor of Radiology FAX: 615-322-3764
Dept. of Radiology & Radiological Sciences
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville TN 37232-2670 Email:s.julian.gibbs@vanderbilt.edu
***********************************************************
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