The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) has issued a statement recommending against the use of bismuth shielding in CT scans.
While acknowledging that bismuth shields are easy to use and have been shown to reduce dose to anterior organs in CT scans, AAPM said the shields have several disadvantages, especially when used with automatic exposure control or tube current modulation.
"Other techniques exist that can provide the same level of anterior dose reduction at equivalent or superior image quality that do not have these disadvantages," the organization said in the statement. "The AAPM recommends that these alternatives to bismuth shielding be carefully considered, and implemented when possible."
The full position statement can be found here.
