Imaging & Radiology

The shield may hide important organs or body parts that the doctor needs to see If this were to happen, we would have to take another x-ray, which would increase the total amount of radiation you receive.

For patient safety, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other experts on x-rays agree that patient shields should not be used for routine x-ray exams.

The amount of radiation required to cause infertility is more than 100 times the dose from a medical imaging exam.³

For example, the gonadal dose to an X-ray of the pelvis is less than 0.8 mGy for a teenage boy and less than 0.3 mGy for a teenage girl. Gonadal doses for newborns receiving medical imaging is about 90% lower than this.⁴ In comparison, male fertility is not affected below an acute dose of 150 mGy. Permanent sterility does not occur in males below 3500 mGy. Female fertility is not affected below 2500 mGy.³

Patient shielding was first recommended in 1976 by the FDA. At that time, patient shielding was thought to protect patients from hereditary risks. Now after more than 50 years of research, we know that is not true. In addition, modern x-ray machines use ~96% less radiation than the machines used, back when the recommendations to shield patients were made.

UM Health-West- University of Michigan Health only uses the latest x-ray digital imaging technology. This technology means the least amount of radiation is used to produce high quality Imaging exams for patients of all sizes.

 Our technologists are also educated on low radiation imaging practices. Our imaging team also includes medical physicists that annually review patient radiation exposure and make sure that the radiation used for our x-ray exams is among as low as it can be, while still providing diagnostic images.

If a shield gets in the way of these sensors, the machine could deliver more radiation than necessary. The shield also has the potential to reduce the quality of theses exams. For these reasons, we will not shield patients during X-ray, Fluoroscopy, and CT exams.

The radiation exposure to the patient areas outside of the imaging field is extremely small. Shielding these areas provides negligible benefit. Since there is a possibility that the shield could move into field if the patient moves, we recommend not to do it. However, if requested, we will shield other body parts outside of the image field. We understand that a shield can be comforting and ease fear or anxiety about the x-ray exam.