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Abusive head trauma: Canadian and global perspectives

  • Child abuse imaging
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Abstract

Canada has come a long way since Dr. C. Henry Kempe first described battered-child syndrome in 1962. The year 1999 was crucial in Canada’s battle against shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma (SBS/AHT), when the first national conference on the topic was held in Saskatoon. This was followed by the issuance of a national statement and multidisciplinary guidelines, recently updated in 2020. Incidence of AHT in Canada is similar to that found in population-based studies from Switzerland and New Zealand. The mainstay of prevention of AHT in Canada is education of parents and caregivers with respect to their response to infant crying. Population-based data for global incidence of AHT are lacking, largely because of social and cultural differences contributing to poor understanding of AHT as a medico-legal entity. India faces a distinct challenge in the battle against female feticide and infanticide.

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Acknowledgments

A.B. is partially funded by Ontasian Imaging Laboratory (OIL), Toronto, Canada. The authors would like to thank Drs. Michelle Shouldice and Emma Cory, Division of Paediatric Medicine and Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, for their valuable input.

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  1. Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Asthik Biswas & Manohar M. Shroff

  2. Department of Diagnostic Imaging, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Ave., Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada

    Asthik Biswas & Manohar M. Shroff

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  1. Asthik Biswas
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  2. Manohar M. Shroff
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Correspondence to Manohar M. Shroff.

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Biswas, A., Shroff, M.M. Abusive head trauma: Canadian and global perspectives. Pediatr Radiol 51, 876–882 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00247-020-04844-5

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