Injuries of Non-Lethal Child Physical Abuse to the Crania and Orofacial Regions: A Scientific Review

Abstract

The literature states that maltreatment in childhood and youth make up a problem on a global scale that exceeds ethnicities, religions, cultures, social and economic classes. It is also said that more than half of the injuries from maltreatment occur in the head and face. Assuming the particular relevance of orofacial structures, the dentist must know how to observe and recognize the indicators and properly diagnose the injury by maltreatment. This scientific review aimed to understand what types of intraoral lesions, signs or external lesions of the head or neck can be associated with child maltreatment. One primary database was searched so that systematic review articles and meta-analysis, case reports or case series of intraoral lesions, signs or external lesions of the head or neck by child maltreatment could be acquired. The references in the works acquired by electronic search were manually researched and the authors of all possibly relevant papers were contacted. In all searches inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Of the twenty two papers included two were systematic reviews and twenty were case reports or case series. The twenty articles of case reports or case series exposed information from thirty-five clinical cases included. Despite the limitations of scientific evidence it can be concluded that oral cavity, head and neck regions are home to multiple and diverse injuries by maltreatment of children and youngsters.