Keywords:
Quality assurance, Education and training, Technical aspects, Radiation safety, Dosimetry, Mammography, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Radiographers, Professional issues
Authors:
D. C. R. Entradas1, S. Rodrigues2, R. P. P. Almeida3, L. P. Ribeiro2, A. F. Abrantes2, M. V. C. Reis2, P. Sousa2; 1Olhão/PT, 2Faro/PT, 3Faro /PT
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-1709
Conclusion
Thyroid protection allows effective reduction of scattered radiation in mammography exams.
The dose received by the thyroid is very low,
and consequently the probability of cancer induction is also extremely low.
Given the significant reduction of the dose and the principle ALARA,
we can conclude that the shield should be used by the mammography exam.
However the use of the shield may provide artifacts,
making difficult the correct analysis of the breast tissue and leading to the examination repetition increasing the radiation exposure of the mammary gland,
as well as the other organs.
To further investigations,
the use of new shields of elastomeric composites containing bismuth,
wolfram,
and gadolinium as the ones purposed by Staniszewska et al.
(2016) could be a solution in order to reduce the artifacts and effective dose reduction in thyroid.