skip to Main Content

Radiologic signs of injury could help identify victims of intimate partner violence, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), Nov. 26-Dec. 1 in Chicago.
“Radiologists must be aware that intimate partner abuse is a common public health problem,” said study author Elizabeth George, M.D., a radiology resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It affects one in four women in the United States. So many of the patients we encounter may have this unfortunate story.”
Medical images sometimes offer early clues that abuse is taking place. In fact, the case that inspired the study’s principal investigator, Bharti Khurana, MD, emergency radiology fellowship program director at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, involved a young woman who arrived at the Emergency Department with an acute nasal bone fracture superimposed on an old, healed fracture. While going through prior medical images of the patient on the hospital’s picture archiving and communication system (PACS), Khurana identified a recent wrist fracture. This pattern of recurrent injury made her voice her suspicion of intimate partner violence, a finding the referring physician initially had not suspected.

Source: Imaging Technology News

Back To Top