Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Is the era of lead shielding in medical imaging coming to an end? That's the implication of a new article we're featuring in our Digital X-Ray Community.
According to the story, many hospitals are starting to ditch covering vital organs of patients with lead shielding during imaging exams to protect them from radiation. While shielding has been a tradition in healthcare since the 1950s, many radiation experts now believe that it can be counterproductive, complicating the acquisition of high-quality images and not protecting at all against scatter radiation.
But old habits die hard, and no longer offering shielding to patients could cause anxiety in today's radiation-conscious environment.
While you're in the Digital X-Ray Community, be sure to check out a story on fascinating research conducted in Australia on using virtual reality to help with patient positioning for x-ray exams.
Get these stories and more in the Digital X-Ray Community.
Norris gadolinium suit dismissed
Meanwhile, a stunning development occurred on Thursday in the legal battles over the safety of gadolinium MRI contrast. Martial arts movie star Chuck Norris and his wife, Gena, voluntarily settled a lawsuit with contrast maker Bracco Imaging, effectively ending the case against the firm.
The Norrises had become the public face of the gadolinium controversy when they filed suit in 2017 against nearly a dozen companies, claiming that Gena had sustained debilitating injuries when she received gadolinium contrast several years before. Bracco said the settlement did not involve a cash payment by either party, and both sides would be paying their own legal fees.
Many questions still swirl about the case, such as whether the Norrises are still pursuing their litigation against other companies and whether the move has ramifications for any of the other gadolinium injury lawsuits moving through the court system.
In other news in the MRI Community, an investigation into last year's accident at a mobile MRI coach in Sweden is still moving forward, a portable MRI scanner roamed the streets of San Francisco at this year's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, and a recent market research report reveals that MRI procedure volume is rising in the U.S. -- reversing a nationwide slowdown in MR procedure growth.
