More than 250 patients treated at 4 or more facilities in 2 states received up to 8 times the expected dose of radiation during computer-assisted tomography perfusion scans, according to an ongoing investigation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In early October, the FDA warned health care workers that it had received reports of 206 patients receiving excess doses of radiation from computed tomographic (CT) scans used to diagnose stroke over an 18-month period at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles (http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm186105.htm). Since then the agency and local health officials have identified at least 50 more affected patients. Additional cases were identified at Cedars-Sinai and two other California hospitals, as well as at least one hospital in Alabama.