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The Therac-25 was designed as a machine controlled by a computer, with some safety mechanisms switched from hardware to software as a result. AECL decided not to duplicate some safety mechanisms, and reused modules and code routines from the Therac-20 for the Therac-25.
A bug in the code controlling the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine was directly responsible for at least five patient deaths in the 1980s when it administered excessive quantities of beta radiation. [15] [16] [17]
Software bugs in the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine were directly responsible for ... a.k.a. logic error, is characterized by code that does not fail with ...
Therac-25 Incidents [ edit ] Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital was the site of two clinical radiotherapy incidents, wherein hospital staff used a Therac-25 machine to treat cancer patients. [ 12 ]
A related cause of accidents is failure of control software, as in the cases involving the Therac-25 medical radiotherapy equipment: the elimination of a hardware safety interlock in a new design model exposed a previously undetected bug in the control software, which could have led to patients receiving massive overdoses under a specific set ...
There have been numerous criticality accidents dating back to atomic testing during World War II, while computer-controlled radiation therapy machines such as Therac-25 played a major part in radiotherapy accidents. The latter of the two is caused by the failure of equipment software used to monitor the radiational dose given.
This process is inefficient and requires a high intensity electron beam to produce enough X-ray intensity for treatment. Therac-25 used a 25 MeV electron beam to produce an X-ray for treatment. 25 MeV is 25 million electron volts (eV -- an eV is the energy needed to move one electron through a potential of one volt).
Ray Cox (died 1986), a victim of the Therac-25 malfunctions in the mid-1980s Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name.