Lead aprons can actually interfere with diagnostic X-rays, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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If you’ve had X-rays to examine your teeth or lungs, you’ve probably been given a lead apron to drape over other parts of your body. Now the American Dental Association has joined other professional organizations to abandon this practice as not only not helpful, but potentially harmful in sometimes causing a study to be repeated. That’s according to Mahadevappa Mahesh, a medical physics expert at Johns Hopkins.

Mahesh: APM American Association of Physicists in Medicine came out with a statement telling like there's no longer need for this gonadal shielding, it is basically interfering. It can end up repeating the exam. However there was some confusion with the technologist because placing a shield on a patient is being a legacy practice for so long and now we're extending that to any type of patient shielding during exam is not very helpful, at the most the only thing is provide is going to give a psychological comfort.   :31

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.