This article represents the work of the National Association of Medical Examiners Ad Hoc Committee on shaken baby syndrome. Abusive head injuries include injuries caused by shaking as well as impact to the head, either by directly striking the head or by causing the head to strike another object or surface. Because of anatomic and developmental differences in the brain and skull of the young child, the mechanisms and types of injuries that affect the head differ from those that affect the older child or adult. The mechanism of injury produced by inflicted head injuries in these children is most often rotational movement of the brain within the cranial cavity. Rotational movement of the brain damages the nervous system by creating shearing forces, which cause diffuse axonal injury with disruption of axons and tearing of bridging veins, which causes subdural and subarachnoid hemorrhages, and is very commonly associated with retinal schisis and hemorrhages. Recognition of this mechanism of injury may be helpful in severe acute rotational brain injuries because it facilitates understanding of such clinical features as the decrease in the level of consciousness and respiratory distress seen in these injured children. The pathologic findings of subdural hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and retinal hemorrhages are offered as "markers" to assist in the recognition of the presence of shearing brain injury in young children.

Our results suggest that subclinical HPV infection is possible, but not commonly associated with sexual abuse in children from St Louis, MO. In this group of children without condyloma, HPV 16 was the only type identified.

In a review of 17 adolescents and children (excluding newborns) with definite clinical signs, symptoms, and laboratory findings of hypothyroidism, 11 patients (65%) had anemia. The mean corpuscular volume (MCV) of the red blood cells was either macrocytic or normocytic. The hemoglobin did not correlate with the serum thyroxine level. Anemia occurred only in those patients with heights below the third percentile, but there was no similar correlation with weights. Of the 10 patients who had radiographs for bone age, all showed severe delay (47 to 103 months) and had heights below the third percentile. Nine of these patients were anemic, but the severity of the anemia did not correlate with the delay in bone age. Neither microcytic anemia nor pernicious anemia, noted in many adult hypothyroid patients, was found in the children and adolescents with hypothyroidism studied here. The "uncomplicated" anemia secondary to hypothyroidism responded to thyroid replacement therapy alone. Anemia can be the most prominent feature of hypothyroidism. In patients with mild to moderate anemia of unknown origin, especially those with fall-off in linear growth and increased MCV, hypothyroidism should be considered in the differential diagnosis of the anemia.

An unbalanced karyotype most likely consisting of a partial duplication of the short arm of chromosome 2 (p13 leads to pter) was found in a newborn infant with intrauterine growth retardation, facial, skeletal, and cardiac abnormalities. There was no evidence of a translocation in either parent. At autopsy, striking histopathologic abnormalities were detected in the central nervous system and ovaries.

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