Fracture Patterns on the Infant Porcine Skull Following Severe Blunt Impact

There is a 1 in 3 chance of abuse in a case where a child less than 18 months has a skull fracture [1]. The most commonly fractured site on the skull is the parietal bone, however it is currently difficult to establish the causation of injury based on the characteristics of the injury [2]. Thus, injury biomechanics are often utilized in the investigation of suspected child abuse cases [3]. Computer simulations, test dummies, and animal models are all used as aids in the assessment of skull fracture causation. For a given impact situation, a number of variables can control the pattern of skull fracture. A study by Baumer et. al assessed the effects of interface and age using an infant porcine skull model, specifically looking at the location of fracture initiation on the parietal bone [4]. This study showed that in low energy impacts fracture initiation occurs at the bone-suture boundary. Also, a deformable interface caused more fracture than a rigid interface for very young subjects. The current study was conducted to assess the effects of higher energy impacts on the patterns of fracture in this model.