“During the pandemic, victims experienced more injuries to the chest and abdomen compared to prior years,” said coauthor Babina Gosangi, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at Yale New Haven Health in New Haven, Connecticut, and former emergency radiology fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “For instance, one victim sustained multiple bilateral rib fractures with right pneumothorax and bilateral lung contusions—requiring hospital admission for more than 10 days—after she was repeatedly punched in the chest. Another victim was stabbed in the abdomen and had lacerations to the liver and kidney.”

It is challenging to help IPV victims in the time of the pandemic when health care providers are overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. In addition, alternative options for IPV victims to seek help have decreased. Many ambulatory clinics are no longer seeing as many patients in person due to the virus and are instead pivoting their services to virtual consultation. Telehealth visits limit the opportunity to visualize bruises or other signs of physical trauma and hamper the ability of the health care provider to gather nonverbal cues.


It may also be difficult for victims who are at home to report IPV, and health care providers may be omitting IPV screening questions altogether on these calls due to patient’s limited privacy. Therefore, the role of radiologists in identifying victims of IPV through imaging exams has become crucial.

By recognizing high imaging utilization, location and imaging patterns specific to IPV, old injuries of different body parts, and injuries inconsistent to provided history, radiologists can identify victims of IPV even when the victims are not forthcoming.

Dr. Khurana, who is also assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, sees this as an opportunity for radiologists to use their expertise in providing patient-centered care and play a critical role in facilitating early intervention, preventing life-threatening injuries and saving lives by early identification of IPV victims.

“As health care providers, we are missing opportunities to identify victims early in the cycle during the pandemic,” she said. “There is under-reporting by the victims, accentuated due to fear of seeking care due to COVID-19. At the same time, IPV-related injuries may be getting overlooked or misinterpreted, as our frontline physicians are overwhelmed by a vast number of COVID-19 patients in the Emergency Department.”

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