When doctors from the University of Pennsylvania performed prostate cancer procedures at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, they made dozens of mistakes over six years, and investigators could find no evidence that anyone was providing oversight, concluded a report issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General's Office. No formal contract existed for many of those years, and the VA ended up overpaying for Penn's services, the report found.
The 110-page report is the last of several probes into the prostate brachytherapy program at the Philadelphia VA, which gave incorrect doses of radiation to 97 of 114 patients treated from February 2002 to June 2008, when it was shut down.
