Lead Apron Use

[Kenneth Abramovitch]

Bob Wood up in Toronto wrote a dosimetry article a few years ago about
thyroid exposures from dental radiography and showed that the gonadal dose
with rectangular collimation, E-speed film and no Apron was less than with a
Pb apron, round collimation and D speed film.  As the late Yankee
broadcaster Mel Allen  would say  "How about that!"
K.A.

At 04:34 PM 5/29/97 -0400, you wrote:
>We have been having a discussion at Florida about the use of lead aprons.
>We have discovered that the state of Florida does not require the use of aprons
>for dentistry and we are reasonably sure that there are no Federal requirements
>(regulations) or at least we can't find anything specfic. The last ADA
>recommendations in 1988 included the use of aprons and collars. Their use
>is generally associated with ALARA. Is there anything more recent that
>recommends, suggests, or requires the use of lead aprons (and collars)
>for dentistry?
>
>My experience in our hospital setting is that there is routinely no apron
>used unless there is direct uterine or gonadal exposure. Since we are
>using E Plus film and rectangular collimation which is a considerably
>smaller beam than anything we would use in a hospital procedure and since
>the lead apron for our institution is the weakess link for good infection
>control we are considering heresy.....perhaps eliminating aprons with
>intraoral procedures!! Would appreciate comments (or verbal whippings)
>from the gallery. Thanks   Jim Pettigrew
>
>