According to a new study, radiologists, while using ultrasound technology and a minimally-invasive procedure, are able to successfully diagnose and treat patients who engage in a troubling self-harming behavior known as self-embedding.
Self-harm (or self-injury) is the general name used to describe a variety of disturbing behaviors in which a person intentionally causes harm to his or her body with no suicidal intent. It is a troubling trend among teenagers, and surprisingly, more common in girls.
The most common forms of self-injury include cutting oneself, bruising, burning, breaking bones, hair pulling, and the swallowing of toxic substances. Self-embedding–the focus of this study– takes the behavior of cutting a step further as the person will puncture the skin in order to insert a foreign object.
Sometimes these objects are left under the skin for years, and many of them have escaped detection during typical X-ray examinations. Ultrasound technology, however, is offering new hope for diagnosing and treating patients who self-embed.
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