Keywords:
Forensic / Necropsy studies, Liver, Abdomen, MR, MR-Diffusion/Perfusion, Medico-legal issues, Forensics
Authors:
S. Keller1, T. M. Schmidt1, A. C. Kim2, R. Fischer1, A. Heinemann1, G. Adam1, J. Yamamura1; 1Hamburg/DE, 2San Francisco, CA/US
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-1165
Aims and objectives
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 cerebral tissue demonstrates a characteristic decrease of ADC values [7].
Unlike brain ex vivo hepatic diffusion capacities have been evaluated only in fetal and stillbirth cases,
at only one time point postmortem.
As in brain,
authors detected a significant decrease of hepatic ADC values compared to in vivo childhood cases.
The aim of this study was therefore to measure the postmortem hepatic ADC values and core body temperature in the immediate 16 hours after death to assess the time- and temperature dependent changes of water diffusion caused by ischemia and the following stages of cell lysis,
and to compare these values to in vivo data of healthy controls.