Diagnostic radiology has been playing an increasingly important role in forensic medicine in the past decades [1,2]. Whereas postmortem computed tomography is already widely and rapidly available, providing information about vascular and bone structures, postmortem magnetic resonance imaging (PMMR), which was introduced into forensic medicine as a second line tool, has been shown to have a high diagnostic accuracy for perinatal abnormalities and documentation of pathological findings in the deceased [3-6]. As shown in a previous study by Schmidt et al. the time-dependent decay of...

Patient population The study protocol was approved by the local Ethics Committee (11/11/2010), and informed consent was obtained from all relatives of the deceased and the living control subjects. Twenty-one patients, all of whom died of natural causes (e.g. cardiovascular arrest), were examined (11 male, 5 female; mean age 70.2 ± 9.6 years; range: 61 – 85 years, mean body weight 69.2 ± 16.6 kg). Exclusion criteria were non-natural dead, a history of chronic or systemic disease affecting the liver parenchyma (e.g. hepatitis, liver tumors...

Post-mortem ADC values The ex vivo temperature corrected median liver ADC was 74.2 ± 13.4 · 10-5 mm2/s (range 39.6 to 96.3 · 10-5 mm2/s) and differed significantly from in vivo median ADC values of 113.7 ± 8.4 · 10-5 mm2/s (range 96.9 to 136.5 · 10-5 mm2/s), p< 0.0001. Figure 4 illustrates the postmortem time course of ADC values. Both the RL and LL showed a characteristic change in ADC values over time. ADC measurement at 2 hours p.m. was achievable in one patient...

The graph of postmortem liver ADC values shows a characteristic change over time in the first 16 hours postmortem, which seemed to be influenced by the core body temperature. The postmortem time behavior of liver DWI values could be of interest for postmortem MRI in virtual autopsy. However, future studies including histopathological confirmation of postmortem MRI findings are of interest.

Sarah Keller M.D. Radiology Consultant/Postdoctoral Researcher University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf Department of Diagnostic and InterventionalRadiology Martinistraße 52 20246 Hamburg Fon: +49 40 7410 50582 Email: [email protected]

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