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UPDATE: NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION TO EXAMINE
RADIATION TREATMENT PROGRAM AT PHILADELPHIA VA --
Officials discovered that dozens of prostate
cancer patients
had received lower-than-prescribed radiation
doses.
A previous story on this issue is here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf0
8/nfAUG08/nf081308-3.htm
Story here...
http://www.govexec.com/stor
y_page.cfm?articleid=40919&dcn=todaysnews
Story below:
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-------------------------
NRC to examine radiation treatment
program at Veterans Affairs
By Katherine McIntire Peters
kpeters@govexec.com
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Tuesday it was conducting a
special inspection of a radiation therapy program at the Veterans Affairs
Medical Center in Philadelphia after officials there discovered that
dozens of prostate cancer patients had received lower-than-prescribed
radiation doses.
"We will take a look at what happened and why," said Viktoria Mitlyng, a
spokeswoman at NRC's Region III office in Lisle, Ill.
The special inspection was triggered after VA inspectors found 55 out of
112 prostate cancer patients treated at the facility between February 2002
and June 2008 had received radiation doses less than 80 percent of what
was prescribed. The patients all were receiving brachytherapy in which
tiny radioactive rods containing iodine-125, sometimes called seeds, are
implanted in the prostate to treat cancer.
The first case of underdosing was discovered in May after a physicist at
the Philadelphia medical center suspected that a patient in the
brachytherapy program likely had received an insufficient dose of
radiation, said Dale Warman, a medical center spokesman.
 Medical
center officials immediately notified the National Health Physics Program,
which provides regulatory oversight for radiation safety throughout the
Veterans Affairs medical system, and began their own administrative review
of the cancer treatment program, Warman said. NHPP confirmed the
underdosing and notified NRC on May 18.
A single event of underdosing does not trigger an NRC special inspection,
said Mitlyng. But it did prompt officials in the National Health Physics
Program to review other patient records at the Philadelphia medical center
to determine if there were other cases of underdosing. An initial review
of 20 records led officials to review all 112 brachytherapy procedures
that had taken place since the program's inception in 2002, Warman said.
The medical center has examined all 112 patients, 55 of whom were found to
have received incorrect radiation doses. Each patient has been assigned a
physician and is receiving follow-up care, Warman said. The medical center
suspended its prostate cancer treatment program in June.
In response to the findings of the National Health Physics Program, NRC
Region III, which oversees the Veterans Affairs radioactive materials
license, in July began a "reactive inspection" into the high number of
medical events reported.
Based on that initial inspection, NRC launched the more extensive special
inspection to broadly examine the medical center's radiation treatment
program, the training and qualifications of personnel involved in the
program, how medical center officials responded to the discovery, and
their plan to address the problem, said Mitlyng.
In addition, NRC will look at any other Veterans Affairs facilities that
use the same equipment and materials, she said. The agency also will ask
an independent medical body to examine a sample of the 55 cases of
underdosing to determine the health effects on patients.
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