Radiologists at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio have invented a shield designed to protect healthy breast tissue from radiotherapy scatter-related damage. A team of Cleveland Clinic radiation oncologists and physicists developed the first working model of the mobile breast shield in 1999. Subsequent clinical trials demonstrated the shield cut the radiation dose to healthy breasts up to 70%.
"Radiation risks to healthy breast tissue in radiotherapy treatment appear to be insignificant for a majority of women," said Dr. Roger Macklis, chairman of the department of radiation oncology at the Cleveland Clinic.
"The review of data on contralateral breast cancer risk, however, indicates there might be a small group of patients with known epidemiological risk factors who may be at increased risk of developing second breast cancers in the opposite breast," he added.
The breast shield technology is now available to all patients receiving radiotherapy for breast cancer at the Cleveland Clinic.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writersAugust 30, 2001
Copyright © 2001 AuntMinnie.com











![A normal mammogram confirmed by three-year radiologic follow-up illustrates reader-marked regions of interest (ROIs) during (A) unaided (round 1) and (B) artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted (round 2) reading. Each colored dot represents an ROI for recall by a human reader. Readers could mark more than one ROI per case, represented by multiple dots of the same color. During AI-assisted reading, the AI system displayed three visible prompts: two with suspicion of malignancy scores of 35% (left mediolateral oblique [L MLO] and craniocaudal [L CC]) and one with a suspicion of malignancy score of 10% (right craniocaudal [R CC]), shown as polygonal overlays. Without AI, six of 10 readers (60%) marked a false-positive ROI. With AI assistance, this fell to two of 10 (20%). R MLO = right mediolateral oblique.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/07/2026-07-14-radiology-mammogram-ai-auto-bias.H0bYO8QlWs.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&h=112&q=70&w=112)






