Recent Advances in Postmortem Forensic Radiology

Abstract

The authors' personal experience of postmortem radiological imaging has revealed many uses for this technology. Not only does it allow planning of the subsequent autopsy, thus providing opportunities for specialist confirmatory dissection techniques, but it can also provide an investigative tool, such as the 355 From: Forensic Pathology Reviews, Vol. 4 Edited by: M. Tsokos © Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJtracking of a projectile's passage through a body or confirmation of an identity. Postmortem radiological imaging techniques can also participate in ensuring protective aspects of health and safety. In such instances it is possible to diagnose pathology in high infectious risk cases without recourse to dissection, thus minimizing exposure. As demonstrated in this chapter, postmortem radiological imaging also allows for identification of fragments of metal in cases of blast injuries. Knowledge of the anatomical location of shrapnel diminishes the risk of receiving injuries during the dissection.Gil Brogdon (1,2,6). As such, this chapter will instead review the recent advances in radiological techniques and their application to forensic medicine. FluoroscopyThe fluoroscope found many proponents of its use in the 1980s and 1990s as a mobile, rapid means of examining bodies or nonhuman material of medicolegal interest (7). The units produce a continuous low-power X-ray beam focused on a region of interest. Rather than a photographic plate, the photon beam is detected by an input fluorescent screen and photocathode. Electrostatic lenses focus the image, which is outputted through a second fluorescent screen to the display monitor allowing real-time examination.This technique is frequently employed in the postmortem period during the examination of cadavers for personal artifacts, bone trauma, metal projectiles, fragments of antipersonnel devices, or even needles where high resolution is not as important, although the latter may not show up on Postmortem Forensic Radiology 359

Accuracy and reliability of measurements obtained from computed tomography 3D volume rendered images

“…The majority of published studies demonstrate high accuracy between measurements taken from a dry element and measurements taken from the 3D-CT image of the same dry element [3,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Usability of CT Images of Frontal Sinus in Forensic Personal Identification

“…The angiographic techniques including corpuscular radiopaque material such as menninge (a red lead oxide), barium sulfate, bismuth chloride, potassium iodide, corn syrup; oily liquids such as iodized oil, propyliodone, mixture of diesel oil and paraffin oil; hydrosoluble preparations such as diatrizoate meglumine, diatrizoate sodium, ioxithalamate; casts such as mixtures of lead, bismuth, and cadmium, celluloid and celloidin, nylon, neoprene latex, polyester resin, vinyl and silicon rubber; and their special mixtures was defined very useful for postmortem investigation of cardiovascular system (Grabherr et al, 2007) (Fig-2). The usage of radiological techniques in postmortem applications allows creating of permanent records of autopsy findings for reevaluation, comparison in personal identification and submission to be evidence to courts (Swift & Rutty, 2006). Also, radiological techniques allow forensic personal identification of the ripped, lacerated, carbonized, macerated, putrefied or skeletonized corpses (Gruber & Kameyama, 2001;Carvalho et al, 2009) and in mass disasters (Kahana & Hiss, 1999;Swift & Rutty, 2006).…”

“…The usage of radiological techniques in postmortem applications allows creating of permanent records of autopsy findings for reevaluation, comparison in personal identification and submission to be evidence to courts (Swift & Rutty, 2006). Also, radiological techniques allow forensic personal identification of the ripped, lacerated, carbonized, macerated, putrefied or skeletonized corpses (Gruber & Kameyama, 2001;Carvalho et al, 2009) and in mass disasters (Kahana & Hiss, 1999;Swift & Rutty, 2006).…”

“…The importance of radiological techniques in clinical forensic application is widely recognized for definition type, severity, healing degree and mechanism of injuries (Kahana & Hiss, 2005;Swift & Rutty, 2006). It was defined that some skull fractures can not be diagnosed on conventional CT; they can be distinguished with the use of plain x-rays (Yavuz et al, 2001).…”

The Role of Mobile Computed Tomography in Mass Fatality Incidents

“…Thus when designing a mass fatality mortuary issues related to radiology equipment sourcing, numbers of trained and accredited operational personnel, the radiological risks to those working in the immediate environment of the equipment and accurate image interpretation must be considered. It is thus important to establish what information can be obtained from various imaging techniques before designing imaging procedures for use in a mass fatality environment (2).…”