Citation

Usui A, Kawasumi Y, Funayama M, Saito H. Jpn. J. Radiol. 2014; 32(7): 414-420.

Affiliation

Department of Diagnostic Image Analysis, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Sendai, 980-8575, Japan, t7402r0506@med.tohoku.ac.jp.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11604-014-0326-9

PMID

24825072

Abstract

PURPOSE: We sought to compare postmortem chest computed tomography (CT) features of drowning cases with autopsy findings, and to classify these features. MATERIALS AND METHOD: We performed a retrospective analysis of high-resolution and multi-planar reconstruction chest CT images of drowning in 92 adults (54 men, 38 women; mean age 65.4 years) scanned before forensic autopsy. The average lung CT number was calculated from whole-lung images reconstructed on a 3D workstation. The statistically significant differences of CT numbers were assessed with an alpha level of 0.05.

RESULTS: Postmortem chest CT image patterns were classified into six types: the two main types were ground-glass opacities with thickened pulmonary interstitium (n = 31), and a centrilobular distribution of ill-defined nodules along the airways (n = 38). Some cases were mixed type (n = 10). There were significant differences in CT numbers between each type. The remaining three types were consolidation (n = 5), emphysema and/or fibrosis (n = 4), and unclassifiable (n = 4).

CONCLUSION: Postmortem CT images of drowning cases can be classified into three major types with a few exceptions.

Language: en