Therac-25 Accidents: We Keep on Learning From Them

Natalia Silvis-Cividjian

doi:10.1109/MC.2024.3450197

Therac-25 Accidents: We Keep on Learning From Them

Natalia Silvis-Cividjian

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Abstract

A medical physicist describes events around an accident in which a radiation therapy machine killed two patients due to software bugs, a poor quality user interface, an obscure error message, and the machine's failure to shut itself down permanently after noting that something was very wrong. The article ends with some lessons.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	69-78
Number of pages	10
Journal	IEEE Computer
Volume	57
Issue number	12
Early online date	15 Nov 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2024.3450197
Publication status	Published - Dec 2024

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10.1109/MC.2024.3450197

Computer-Therac-25-Silvis-accepted-manuscriptSubmitted manuscript, 901 KB

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10754612

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Therac-25_Accidents_We_Keep_on_Learning_From_Them
Final published version, 1.69 MB
Licence: Article 25fa Dutch Copyright Act
Embargo ends: 17/05/25

Cite this

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