Should mammography patients be given thyroid shields?

No. In the fall of 2010, the popular TV doc, Mehmet Oz, aired a program in which he recommended to his viewers that they request thyroid shields be provided during screening mammography examinations. This is an erroneous recommendation and not based on scientific fact. The radiation dose to the thyroid from scatter and tube leakage during a mammography exam is less than 0.005 mGy. The presence of a thyroid shield could also cause image artifacts. In April 2011, the ACR and the SBI published a joint statement on the use of thyroid shields during mammography, which you can access with this link.