title: Dating of Early Subdural Haematoma: A Correlative Clinico-Radiological Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Determination of post-traumatic interval remains one of the foremost important goals of any forensic investigation related to human crimes. The estimation of time since injury in cases of subdural haemorrhage has been studied only by a few investigators on the histological and radiological front.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to determine the post-traumatic interval of Subdural Haemorrhage (SDH) based on Hounsfield Unit measurements (HU) on Computed Tomography (CT) in surviving victims of head injury.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study included a total of 100 cases of closed head injury with subdural haemorrhage. The Post-traumatic Time Interval (PTI) varied from 0.5 hours to a maximum of 249 hours, with a mean of 54.2 hours.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Statistically significant results were obtained between the HU measurements of the SDH and the post-traumatic intervals and were found to be statistically significant. A rough attempt was made to determine the effect of haematoma volume on attenuation and was found out to be statistically insignificant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The density of the subdural haematoma decreases with increase in the post-traumatic interval that concurs with the limited number of studies being conducted in the past. We concluded that further sorting of cases could be done according to its age with additional research and uniformity in the methodology.
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research , Chandigarh, India .
authors.forename: Murali Gundu
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.affiliation: Professor and Head, Department of Forensic Medicine, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research , Chandigarh, India .
authors.forename: Dalbir
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Professor and Head, Department of Radio-diagnosis & Imaging, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research , Chandigarh, India .
authors.forename: Niranjan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Khandelwal
authors.affiliation: Professor, Department of Statistics, Panjab University , Chandigarh, India .
authors.forename: Suresh Kumar
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Sharma
keywords: Attenuation coefficient; Computed tomography; Post-traumatic interval; Subdural haemorrhage; Volume