title: A minimum data set approach to post-mortem computed tomography reporting for anthropological biological profiling.
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.
authors.affiliation: East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit, Robert Kilpatrick Building, Level 3, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, LE2 7LX, UK, alb39@le.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Alison L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Brough
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: Sue
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Black
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.forename: Guy N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Rutty
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000365:Age Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*; D000366:Age Determination by Teeth / Q000379:methods*; D000367:Age Factors; D001344:Autopsy; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D061330:Multidetector Computed Tomography; D015588:Observer Variation; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011873:Radiology Information Systems; D011996:Records; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult