![]() Hospitals would not need to maintain two separate machines, reducing their maintenance costs, and logistics could be simplified, as patients would not need to be moved from one room to the next. Revolutionary DesignÄual-mode operation was truly revolutionary at the time. These particles travel further and are best suited to treating deeper tissues, such as cancer of the lungs. The second mode of operation delivers radiation via a beam of higher-energy X-Ray photons. Firstly, it could fire a beam low flow-energy electrons, which do not penetrate far into the body, and are therefore well-suited at killing shallow tissues, such as in skin cancer. The Therac-25 was a linear accelerator with two modes of operation. However, care must be taken to ensure that the dose is not too large, as this would kill healthy surrounding tissue, and could lead to serious injury or death for the patient. For example, cancerous cells can be killed by a dose of radiation which specifically targets the affected area. Radiation is toxic to living cells, and in large enough quantities will cause them to die. The manufacturer ultimately became the target of several lawsuits from families of the victims, and became subject to a Class I recall from the FDA, a situation which only happens if the agency believes there is significant risk of death or serious injury through continued use of a medical device. ![]() The removal of these hardware safety measures had tragic consequences, as race conditions in the codebase led to the death of three patients, and caused debilitating injuries to at least three other patients. It was also designed from the outset to use software based safety systems rather than hardware controls. The Therac-25 was a radiation therapy machine manufactured by AECL in the 80s, which offered a revolutionary dual treatment mode.
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