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When Radiation Therapy Kills Tuesday May 21, 2013
Case Summarization New expensive medical therapies are introduced to physicians, technicians, and hospitals for specific cancer patients. The medical treatment, radiation therapy gives the patients and their family hope of curing the disease and to live the remainder of life cancer-free. Radiation therapy is proven to work on multiple cancer diseases such as brain cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. Radiation therapy can cause side effects by damaging healthy cells that are located near the cancer. In this case study, it explains when using the advanced technology incorrectly it can result in the patients’ sickness worsening, and may even result to death. Scott Jerome-Parks Story Scott Jerome-Parks is a 43 year old man who worked in Southern Manhattan near the site of the tragic World Trade Center attack and months later was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He suspected it had to involve the toxic dust that he came in contact with at the scene of the attack. He was treated at the New York City Hospital and became a candidate to receive radiation treatment provided by one of the top facilities, St. Vincent’s Hospital. During the treatment the computer had crashed while showing errors that the physicians decided to ignore. When they ran a report to see the progress of the patient they discovered that the multi-leaf collimator, which is supposed to target directly at the tumour, was wide open. This careless mistake resulted in the patient experiencing deafness and near blindness, ulcers in his mouth and throat, persistent nausea, and severe pain. Mr. Jerome-Parks’ teeth were starting to fall out and was unable to breathe, which later resulted in his death at 43 years old.
Alexandra Jn-Charles Story For a 32 year old mother of two from Brooklyn, Alexandra Jn-Charles, her story was similarity tragic. She was treated at the Brooklyn hospital with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Her situation seemed encouraging after she completed breast surgery followed by chemotherapy with only 28 days of her radiation treatment left. The technology used for her treatment was an older model and needed to be treated differently. On the final day of radiation treatment, the technicians realized an error. They discovered that the accelerator lacked the crucial command to insert the wedge, which had to be programmed by the user. Jn-Charles was exposed to almost quadruple radiation then planned which resulted in her skin peeling and unable to heal. Jn-Charles had multiple surgeries to heal the infected wound, although a couple years after the wound closed, she passed away.