Posted by: Laura Bejah in Health Stories on August 22nd, 2010
BOSTON, Aug. 24 (UPI) — Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging may help detect suspected child abuse in infants, U.S. researchers suggest.
Lead author Dr. Jeannette M. Perez-Rossello says the diagnosis of abuse relies heavily on the presence of skeletal injuries and a series of X-rays of all the bones in the body is recommended to visualize the often subtle high-specificity fractures seen in infant abuse.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School in Boston say the study involved 21 infants who underwent whole-body MRI — which uses a magnetic field, radio frequency pulses and a computer to produce detailed images of organs — for the evaluation of suspected child abuse.