Anorexia nervosa - the paucity of radiologic findings in more than fifty patients.

Anorexia nervosa is a self-imposed progressive starvation based on a psychiatric disorder. More than fifty patients (mainly adolescent girls) have had extensive radiologic evaluation. The radiographic findings are an absence of subcutaneous fat, with reduced muscle mass; the gastrointestinal findings are limited to moderate non-obstructive dilatation of small bowel loops with minimal effect on transit. These findings reflect the cachexia and in no way are diagnostic of anorexia nervosa per se.