Radiation overdose wreaks havoc on one woman’s life

By Caroline Stetler

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 

TaAnya Carter’s life has been turned upside down, ever since an emergency room visit to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in February 2009.

Her hair began to fall out, daily and in large amounts, two to three inches above her ears. Red dots began appearing on her bald scalp. The skin underneath her fingernails turned a flaming red. Her vision became blurry.

Carter’s hairdresser knew something was amiss. Her primary care doctor didn’t know what was the cause. Prior to her hospitalization, the only medical problems Carter had related to diabetes. It wasn’t until months later that Carter received a call from Cedars Sinai radiology department to say she had been exposed to too much radiation during her visit.

Federal officials continue to investigate radiation overdoses linked to CT brain perfusion scans at about a dozen hospitals nationwide.  The scans -- often performed in emergency situations -- help doctors find blood clots in the brain.

Carter and 260 patients undergoing CT brain perfusion scans at Cedars Sinai from February 2008 to August 2009 were exposed to eight times the normal radiation dose.

The California Department of Public Health has since issued "deficiency reports" to Cedars Sinai and at least three other hospitals and required corrective action. In each instance, the "CT technologists had not been trained to observe or track the doses."

Carter is reportedly one of a dozen Cedars Sinai patients who were over-radiated more than once. After she passed out at work in February 2009, she was rushed by ambulance to the facility. During Carter's 15-day stay, she underwent three scans, according to her attorney Dana Taschner. Even after the tests, Carter said doctors still couldn’t say what caused her to faint.

When Carter received the call from Cedars, she said she hoped to finally get some answers. But instead the official nonchalantly asked her whether she had experienced hair loss and told her it would grow back. Carter said he seemed “uncaring and aloof,” even when she explained that her hair would not grow back quickly because of her African American heritage.

He did not apologize nor offer to have her come into the clinic to check her symptoms. “All the things were starting to make sense now, how are you guys going to help me?” Carter recalled thinking, but she said the official failed to return her calls when she inquired whether her other symptoms were also related to the radiation overexposure.

The seemingly superficial loss of her hair became much more. She’s now coping with an inability to work, a separation from her boyfriend and depression. She used to manage a call center at Time Warner in Los Angeles, but Carter is now on disability, she said, because of headaches and an inability to focus and communicate as clearly as she used to.

“My whole world has changed because of this in a lot of different ways, and it’s something that they had left me to deal with,” Carter said. “My life was not this complicated and this sorrowful, and this hurting. I went through depression, I went through anger and I do blame it on them, I do.”

Taschner, Carter’s attorney, filed suit against GE Healthcare, the manufacturer of the CT scanner, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. In addition, officials at different hospitals who use the same scanner and attorneys from other states have been calling Taschner requesting information about his investigation.

“It’s very telling that fingers are being pointed [by joint defendants],” Taschner said. “Cedars is saying the manufacturer could have stopped this, frankly waiting for the other shoe to drop, where the manufacturer is saying you had the ability to turn it down to the lowest dosage and you didn’t. We don’t operate it. You do.”

California law states that all medical diagnostic machines must be inspected every three years. The Joint Commission, a hospital accreditation body, awarded Cedars-Sinai Medical Center its gold seal of approval in December 2008 – 10 months after patients began receiving radiation overdoses, but eight months before the error came to the attention of hospital officials. Cedars’ primary stroke center was awarded a gold seal, too.

Carter had no reason to doubt the care she would receive at Cedars. However, she says she never was told what kind of tests were going to be administered nor given the chance to authorize them.  Carter hopes her suit leads to improved communication between patients and medical staff.

“Explain what you’re doing to the patient, explain that contraption that machine you’re using and, for god’s sake, if made a mistake let that patient know immediately […] give us the courtesy. We have a right to know,” Carter said. “We put our life and health in their hands at the times we go into a facility like that, into a hospital. We’re not trying to come out balding. We’re not trying to come out with blurred vision. We’re not trying to come out with dramatic changes in our life.”