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Web Exclusive: Letter to the New York Times January 25, 2010

Radiation therapy 99.99 percent safe and effective

No medical error is acceptable and the two instances reported in your article on January 24, 2010, "The Radiation Boom – Radiation Offers New Cures, and Ways to Do Harm" are devastating. We regret the suffering the patients and families were forced to endure.

However, the numbers reported are exceptionally misleading. The story cites 621 radiation mistakes. During that time, we estimate half a million New Yorkers received 13.6 million daily radiation therapy treatments, meaning radiation errors occurred only .0046 percent of the time. We believe your readers should see this context.

Even one error is too many and ASTRO continuously works to strengthen the radiation oncology safety culture. We are at the forefront by providing quality assurance tools, hands-on training for sophisticated treatments like IMRT, guidelines on treatment use, new technology assessments and accreditation. ASTRO leads an international coalition improving equipment interconnectivity to prevent errors.

All treatments pose risks and patients should discuss them with their doctors. Radiation therapy is a tool no different than a knife in the hands of a surgeon. It should be used only by those with appropriate training and board certification.

Tim R. Williams, M.D.

Chairman, American Society for Radiation Oncology, the world’s largest radiation oncology society with 10,000 members, and a radiation oncologist at Boca Raton Community Hospital in Boca Raton, Fla.

 

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Posted: 01-25-2010 3:17 PM by ASTROnews | with 5 comment(s)
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Comments

videtic19000 said:

Dr. Williams, thank you for your prompt, clear and context-appropriate response. I read the article yesterday in my local newspaper, as supplied by the NY Times service and was utterly astonished by its tone, inappropriateness and imbalanced presentation. No doubt, this has been prompted by the brachytherapy debacle at the VA.

Sincerely, Gregory Videtic,MD

# January 25, 2010 5:50 PM

tendicott said:

May I add my thanks, Dr. Williams, for your rapid response.  The NY Times report is riveting, and does a good job of communicating the anguish endured by that patient and family.  But it adds to the climate of fear around sharing information about medical errors, and it does a terrible job of communicating the potential benefits of radiation therapy.  The reader is left with the sense that radiation is given without regard to the health and comfort of our patients.  I wonder how many people will decide not to seek curative radiation therapy because this article was written, and thus how much real damage this article has done.  

Thyra Endicott MD

# January 25, 2010 6:37 PM

bechtel13145 said:

I think it would have added a little punch if you could have made some reasonable estimate of the number of people potentially cured in that time frame also.  But the quick response was great.

# January 28, 2010 9:40 AM

jaronowitz said:

We are all aware that radiotherapy, even when properly applied, can cause significant toxicity.  Unfortunately, patients and their families often believe that toxicity is secondary to misadministration ('I was overdosed').

I am concerned that the TIMES article will engender a defensive posture among radiation oncologists, a tendency to UNDERDOSE, in an effort to avoid toxicity that could be misconstrued as misadministration.

# January 28, 2010 11:00 AM

sapareto17974 said:

While tragic that the cases reported by the New York Times article have occurred, it would be even more tragic if patients were to forgo radiation therapy because of fear and misunderstanding of the extremely low risk of these kinds of outcomes.

Stephen Sapareto, PhD

# January 29, 2010 11:02 AM