Citation

Usui A, Kawasumi Y, Hosokai Y, Kozakai M, Saito H, Funayama M. Leg. Med. (Elsevier) 2016; 18: 98-103.

Affiliation

Department of Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Sendai 980-8575, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Japanese Society of Legal Medicine, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.legalmed.2016.01.004

PMID

26832386

Abstract

Gunshot injury has always been an important field of investigation in postmortem forensic radiology. The localization and retrieval of the bullet and of potentially important fragments are vital to these cases. Using postmortem multidetector-row computed tomography (MDCT) prior to forensic autopsy, we sought to illustrate the importance of this modality in the noninvasive characterization of gunshot wounds. We obtained and analyzed MDCT images in three cases of gunshot wounds (accidental close-range shotgun shooting, suicidal contact gunshot to the head and accidental long-range buckshot shooting). We discuss the value of postmortem MDCT findings in gunshot wound cases by comparing with forensic autopsy findings in Japan, a developing country with miserably low autopsy rate.

Language: en