Two cases of incontinentia pigmenti simulating child abuse

In the United States 1.4 million children were maltreated in 1988, resulting in an estimated 2000 to 5000 deaths. Largely due to the rising awareness and sensitivity to the horrors of child abuse, the number of deaths declined to approximately 1500 in 1993. Guidelines have been published to aid in the identification and management of child maltreatment, and reporting of all suspicious cases is mandated by law. In our zealous efforts to protect children, some families are investigated because of misdiagnosed abnormalities, often cutaneous, leading to the unintentional injury of both patients and their families. In this report, we describe two patients with cutaneous and/or visceral manifestations of incontinentia pigmenti (IP) who were initially thought to be victims of child abuse.