OBJECTIVE
The clavicle is almost always involved in skull X-rays of infants. The objectives of this study were to determine how often the clavicle and clavicle fractures are visible but missed on skull anterior-posterior view (skull AP) of infants and which factors are associated with missing the diagnosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively studied about the patients aged 1 year or younger who were taken skull AP for any injury survey at a single urban, academic hospital from April 1999 to July 2012. Outcomes of interest were the numbers and percentage of visible clavicles, clavicle fractures including missed ones on skull AP, and the factors associated with a missing the diagnosis.
RESULTS
Both clavicles were visible in 734 patients (89.6%). Of them, 10 cases (1.4%) of clavicle fractures were confirmed and 6 of them (0.8%) were missed at presentation. Although we tried to determine the factors associated to missed diagnoses among age (< 6 months), male sex, blocking by guardian’s hands, associated skull fractures, mechanism of injury, none was significantly associated with clavicle fractures.
CONCLUSION
The clavicle was recognizable on skull X-rays in most cases. Therefore one should check the clavicle while reading skull X-rays.