Is post-mortem ultrasonography a useful tool for forensic purposes?

Abstract

According to the results, post-mortem ultrasonography seems to have a very limited role for forensic purposes. Other post-mortem utilizations are cited, proposed, and discussed.

Comparison of postmortem ultrasound and X-Ray with autopsy in fetal death: Retrospective study of 169 cases

“…However, the accuracy of postmortem ultrasound has never been studied, which was the objective of this work. Up to now, only five publications about the use of postmortem US were found and only two concerning the topic of fetal death [6][7][8][9][10]. In the older one published in 1989, US was perform only when autopsy was refused and therefore do not compare their results with the gold standard [9].…”

CT-guided percutaneous needle placement in forensic medicine

“…There were a few reports about US-guided needle placement in postmortem examination [15,16], but the US-guided procedure seems to have a very limited role for forensic purposes because of excessive gas artifacts related to subcutaneous and/or visceral putrefaction [3]. Especially when the skin surface is destructed, the US probe is hardly used, so that it might be the main obstacle to detect the inner body organs.…”

“…Because needle placement enables obtaining a sample from a lesion, this technique is widely used in many clinical settings. On the other hand, postmortem imaging examinations are increasingly used in forensic medicine as a diagnostic tool [3][4][5][6], especially CT as a complement to or substitute for complete body opening [7]. However, so far there have been only a few reports about CT-guided needle placement in forensic practice [7][8][9].…”

Topographical distribution of blubber in finless porpoises (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis sunameri): a result from adapting to living in coastal waters

“…The alternative and more traditional, often unpleasant, and laborious method involves necropsy of carcasses (that are prone to rapid decomposition, especially when laboratories are far away from the field) (Ryg et al 1990;Heng et al 2009). Postmortem abdominal ultrasonography is generally considered to be of limited or no value, particularly for highly decomposed cadavers because gas rapidly accumulates in the gastrointestinal tract and blood vessels (Charlier et al 2013;Heng et al 2009). Nevertheless, we explore the possibility that ultrasound images of blubber might provide meaningful data, given that abdominal gases might not have the same effect on these tissues in fresh carcasses.…”