• Child abuse & neglect · May 2020

    Occult head injuries in infants evaluated for physical abuse.

    • M Katherine Henry, Chris Feudtner, Kristine Fortin, Daniel M Lindberg, James D Anderst, Rachel P Berger, and Joanne N Wood.
    • Division of General Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 34(th) Street and Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States; Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2716 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19146, United States; Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, 34(th) Street and Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States; Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, 34(th) Street and Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States. Electronic address: henrym2@email.chop.edu.
    • Child Abuse Negl. 2020 May 1; 103: 104431.

    BackgroundAbusive head injuries in infants may be occult but clinically or forensically important. Data conflict regarding yield of neuroimaging in detecting occult head injuries in infants evaluated for physical abuse, with prior studies identifying yields of 4.3-37.3 %.Objectives(1) To quantify yield of computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging in identification of occult head injuries in infants with concerns for physical abuse and (2) to evaluate risk factors for occult head injuries.Participants And SettingWe conducted a retrospective, stratified, random systematic sample of 529 infants <12 months evaluated for physical abuse at 4 urban children's hospitals in the United States from 2008-2012. Infants with signs or symptoms suggesting head injury or skull fracture on plain radiography (N = 359), and infants without neuroimaging (N = 1) were excluded.MethodsSampling weights were applied to calculate proportions of infants with occult head injuries. We evaluated for associations between hypothesized risk factors (age <6 months, rib or extremity fracture, facial bruising) and occult head injury using chi-square tests.ResultsOf 169 neurologically normal infants evaluated for abuse, occult head injury was identified in 6.5 % (95 % CI: 2.6, 15.8). Infants <6 months were at higher risk (9.7 %; 95 % CI: 3.6, 23.3) than infants 6-12 months (1.0 %; 95 % CI: 1.3, 20.2). Rib fracture, extremity fracture and facial bruising were not associated with occult head injury.ConclusionsOccult head injuries were less frequent than previously reported in some studies, but were identified in 1 in 10 infants <6 months. Clinicians should have a low threshold to obtain neuroimaging in young infants with concern for abuse.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…