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A minimum data set approach to post-mortem computed tomography reporting for anthropological biological profiling

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Abstract

Anthropological examination of bones is routinely undertaken in medico-legal investigations to establish an individual’s biological profile, particularly their age. This often requires the removal of soft tissue from bone (de-fleshing), which, especially when dealing with the recently deceased, is a time consuming and invasive procedure. Recent advances in multi-detector computed tomography have made it practical to rapidly acquire high-resolution morphological skeletal information from images of “fleshed” remains. The aim of this study was to develop a short standard form, created from post-mortem computed tomography images, that contains the minimum image-set required to anthropologically assess an individual. The proposed standard forms were created for 31 juvenile forensic cases with known age-at-death, spanning the full age range of the developing human. Five observers independently used this form to estimate age-at-death. All observers estimated age in all cases, and all estimations were within the accepted ranges for traditional anthropological and odontological assessment. This study supports the implementation of this approach in forensic radiological practice.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit, Robert Kilpatrick Building, Level 3, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, LE2 7LX, UK

    Alison L. Brough & Guy N. Rutty

  2. Imaging Department, Leicester Royal Infirmary, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester, LE2 7LX, UK

    Bruno Morgan & Claire Robinson

  3. Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dow Street, Dundee, DD1 5EH, UK

    Sue Black & Craig Cunningham

  4. Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University Dental Hospital, Cardiff, CF14 4XY, UK

    Catherine Adams

Authors
  1. Alison L. Brough
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  2. Bruno Morgan
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  3. Claire Robinson
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  4. Sue Black
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  5. Craig Cunningham
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  6. Catherine Adams
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  7. Guy N. Rutty
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Correspondence to Alison L. Brough.

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Brough, A.L., Morgan, B., Robinson, C. et al. A minimum data set approach to post-mortem computed tomography reporting for anthropological biological profiling. Forensic Sci Med Pathol 10, 504–512 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-014-9581-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-014-9581-4

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