Current State of Gonadal Shielding in Medical Imaging: A Review.
The Medical Radiation Practice Board of Australia’s professional capabilities, state that registered radiographers
must “provide safe radiation practice” by ensuring that the likelihood of exposure is kept as low as reasonably achievable. The three principles that enforce this are to minimise time, maximise distance and apply shielding
Radiographers abide by these principles because of stochastic and deterministic effects associated with radiation. Stochastic effects of ionising radiation are chance events, such as cancer and genetic effects, with the probability of the effect increasing with increasing radiation dose.
There is no threshold associated with it and the effects are most likely to occur later in life. A deterministic effect occurs once a threshold is reached, and the biological response of the effect increases with radiation dose.
Lead has a high atomic number (Z=82) and a high atomic mass (A=208) which makes it an effective shielding material from
X-Ray photons. Radiation personal protective equipment are composed of lead, and these include gonadal shields, lead aprons and thyroid shields. Gonad shielding was introduced in 1905 to prevent male sterility and became more prevalent in the 1950s as hereditary risks became a
major concern after atomic bomb survivors exhibited high cancer incidence.
However, subsequent generations of atomic bomb survivors have not displayed any signs of radiation induced genetic effects or having increased risks to other diseases. Epidemiological studies of the atomic bomb survivors also recognised the higher risk of inducing cancer in
children compared to adults, specifically when exposed to ionising radiation in early childhood. Furthermore, children are
3-4 times more radiosensitive than adults due to their longer life expectancy and many cancers remain latent.
Radiol Open J. 2022; 6(1): 7-13. doi: 10.17140/ROJ-6-137
