The importance of laboratory re-evaluation in cases of suspected child abuse – A case report

Bruising is the most frequent sign of child abuse [1,2] during childhood, but bruises are also a symptom of a wide variety of diseases such as leukemia. [3,4] With an annual incidence of 45 in 1,000,000 children less than 16 years of age, leukemias are a rather rare disease, but nevertheless the most frequent type of malignoma in childhood. [5] In 2015, 452 cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were diagnosed in children below the age of 15 in Germany. [6] However, the record ‘child abuse’ had been registered seven times more frequently than ALL for the same year [7], and assumingly a considerably high estimated number of unreported or misinterpreted cases.
Source: Legal Medicine - Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Tags: Case Report Source Type: research