Identification from chest x-rays: reliability of bone density patterns of the humerus.
A critical review of Kahana and Hiss' study on identification from bone trabecular pattern and a test of their method conducted on the humerus are presented. Bone trabecular pattern was studied through the generation of a numerical file representing the gray scale. Using the correlation coefficient, several pairwise comparisons between numerical files were performed. The test gave nearly 30% of incorrect exclusions (the method did not recognize couples of radiographs belonging to the same subject) and 50% of misidentifications (the method recognized couples of radiographs belonging to different subjects, as belonging to the same subject); therefore, this research shows that at the present time, it is not possible to safely quantify identification through bone density patterns, of the proximal humerus taken from thoracic X-rays. Thus, an "easy"-but dangerous-use of trabecular density patterns on this specific type of radiogram as an identification method should be currently avoided.
Ciaffi
Romina
R
Labanof, Istituto di Medicina Legale, University of Milan, Via Mangiagalli 37, 20133 Milano, Italy. ciaffi@med.uniroma2.it
De Angelis
Danilo
D
Gherardini
Pier Federico
PF
Arcudi
Giovanni
G
Nessi
Renato
R
Cornalba
Gian Paolo
GP
Grandi
Marco
M
Cattaneo
Cristina
C
D015519:Bone Density; D018732:Forensic Anthropology / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D006811:Humerus / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013902:Radiography, Thoracic; D012984:Software