Phila. VA errors went uncorrected for years

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

Almost as soon as the Philadelphia VA Medical Center began offering radiation seed therapy to prostate cancer patients in 2002, questions arose about the quality of the treatment, federal investigators said.

Yet it wasn't until a year ago that anything happened. The Philadelphia VA suspended the "brachytherapy" treatment program and began examining whether more than 100 veterans had received inadequate radiation doses.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees such radiation therapy, launched an investigation and published some results this month in the Federal Register.

In recent news reports, the extent of the problems with the brachytherapy program became public. Of 92 mismanaged cases, 57 men got significantly less radiation than prescribed, and 35 received excessive doses, including 25 who received too much radiation to the rectum.

Great moments in socialized medicine!