![]() ![]() “I don’t think it’s going to happen overnight,” she added. Lurie Children’s Hospital, called the move away from shielding a “pretty substantial” change. Cynthia Rigsby, a radiologist at Chicago’s Ann & Robert H. Moreover, shielding doesn’t protect against the greatest radiation effect: “scatter,” which occurs when radiation ricochets inside the body, including under the shield, and eventually deposits its energy in tissues. Shields can also cause automatic exposure controls on an X-ray machine to increase radiation to all parts of the body being examined in an effort to “see through” the lead. Even when in the right place, they can inadvertently obscure areas of the body a doctor needs to see - the location of a swallowed object, say - resulting in a need to repeat the imaging process, according to the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, which represents physicists who work in hospitals. Lead shields are difficult to position accurately, so they often miss the target area they are supposed to protect. Only in the past decade did radiology professionals start to reassess the practice, based on changes in imaging technology and a better understanding of radiation’s effects. Subscribe to KHN's free Morning Briefing.Ĭovering testicles and ovaries during X-rays has been recommended since the 1950s, when studies in fruit flies prompted concern that radiation might damage human DNA and cause birth defects. “How do you approach something that is so deeply ingrained in the minds of the health care community and the minds of patients?” “There’s this big psychological component, not only with patients but with staff,” said Rebecca Marsh, a medical physicist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado, who spoke about shielding at a December forum here at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. The movement also has yet to gain much traction among dentists, whose offices perform more than half of all X-rays. ![]() The about-face is intended to improve care, but it will require a major effort to reassure regulators, health care workers and the public that it’s better not to shield.įear of radiation is entrenched in the collective psyche, and many people are surprised to learn that shielding can cause problems. Some hospitals are ditching the ritual of covering reproductive organs and fetuses during imaging exams after prominent medical and scientific groups have said it’s a feel-good measure that can impair the quality of diagnostic tests and sometimes inadvertently increase a patient’s radiation exposure. ![]()
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