Boy developed "toasted skin" condition from using a laptop every day

Fears that modern electronic devices may harm children are nothing new. Gadgets with screens of any size have long been allegedly melting, rotting, and/or corrupting the brains of youths for decades. However, a medical case report published this week offers a new and alarming way our digital doodads may cause physical harm.

In BMJ Case Reports, two UK doctors, Mara Znagoveanu and Edward Artley, report the case of a boy who came to an emergency department with alarming marks on his abdomen. The marks were described as being in a patch about 15 centimeters (6 inches) wide, made of flat, reddish-brown “interlacing lines forming irregular circles and a lace-like morphology.” A picture of the marks is here.

Mysterious marks

The boy, whom they described only as being in “mid-childhood,” was not in any pain, and the rash was not warm to the touch or tender. He and his parents said they couldn’t think of any recent injuries or trauma that might explain the marks. He was otherwise healthy, hadn’t recently been ill, and had no systemic symptoms, such as fever or fatigue. Everything about the boy’s health, growth, and medical history looked normal.

Nurses in the emergency department initially described it as “spontaneous bruising.” A physical exam yielded no insights; there were no other skin abnormalities, abdominal tenderness, or signs of organ trouble. They did a chest X-ray, searching for an explanation. It revealed a small patch of whiteness over his left lung, indicating cells or fluid, such as pus or blood.

As the doctors were taking blood for further testing, the boy told them that he did have one injury: About a week prior, around when the marks appeared, he was play-fighting with his siblings and got pushed into a chair. He said he didn’t mention it before because he didn’t want his siblings to get in trouble.

The new information pointed the doctors to the idea of an underlying traumatic injury. They did a computed tomography (CT) scan, looking for internal abdominal injuries. But they found none, besides the small blip in his lungs that the X-ray showed—which could have just been incidental from a minor infection.