A freak accident apparently was to blame for a fire in a Toshiba America Medical Systems Aquilion Quad CT scanner in March at Goodall Hospital in Sanford, OR. A preliminary Toshiba investigation has concluded that the fire was caused by a screw falling into the power supply of the system's scan recon unit, said John Zimmer, vice president of marketing at the Tustin, CA-based firm.
The Aquilion was in its first day of operation when the fire took place, according to a report in the Portland Press Herald. A patient who was inside the four-slice scanner when the unit caught fire was removed safely, according to the article.
According to the article, hospital technicians and a Toshiba representative heard a popping noise and then saw smoke. The fire was confined to the gantry, however, and no evacuation of the department was necessary, Zimmer said. A mobile unit was placed into service, and a new scanner has since been installed.
In a matter unrelated to the Goodall incident, Toshiba initiated a class III voluntary recall in February of brushes used in its single- and four-slice Aquilion systems, affecting 68 installations. The recall was triggered by a company investigation into another fire in a four-slice Aquilion last summer in Iowa, an incident that was caused by a lack of maintenance by a third-party service firm, Zimmer said.
During the investigation, Toshiba discovered that brush-holder assemblies designed for its Asteion systems may have mistakenly been installed on some single- and four-slice Aquilion systems manufactured between May 2000 and November 2001, Zimmer said. As a result, Toshiba initiated the recall.
Because the recall stemmed from the Iowa fire incident, the Food and Drug Administration apparently chose to use the wording, "misassembly can cause fire" in the recall notice, Zimmer said. Toshiba has completed the recall process at 58 of 68 sites, according to the firm.
"With the appropriate brushes and appropriate maintenance, there is absolutely no risk to the customer," Zimmer said.
Installation of the correct brush-holder assembly takes a few hours, he said. Zimmer said that Toshiba has not had this problem with any of its other CT scanners.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writersMay 2, 2003
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