title: Use of Autopsy to Determine Live or Stillbirth: New Approaches in Decision-support Systems.
abstract: Fetal deaths are important cases for forensic medicine, as well as for criminal and civil law. From a legal perspective, the determination of whether a deceased infant was stillborn is a difficult process. Such a determination is generally made during autopsy; however, no standardized procedures for this determination exist. Therefore, new facilitative approaches are needed. In this study, three new support systems based on 10 autopsy parameters were tested for their ability to correctly determine whether deceased infants were alive or stillborn. Performances were analyzed and compared with one another. The artificial neural networks and radial basis function network models had 90% accuracy (the highest among the models tested), 100% sensitivity, and 83.3% specificity. Thus, the models presented here provide additional insights for future studies concerning infant autopsies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical Faculty, Bulent Ecevit University, Zonguldak, Turkey.
authors.forename: Riza
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yilmaz
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Engineering, Bulent Ecevit University, Zonguldak, Turkey.
authors.forename: Okan
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Erkaymaz
authors.affiliation: The Council of Forensic Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Erdogan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kara
authors.affiliation: Department of Biophysics, Medical Faculty, Bulent Ecevit University, Zonguldak, Turkey.
authors.forename: Kivanc
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ergen
mesh_terms: D000653:Amniotic Fluid; D001344:Autopsy; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D050498:Live Birth; D016015:Logistic Models; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D011247:Pregnancy; D011650:Pulmonary Alveoli / Q000473:pathology; D053120:Respiratory Aspiration / Q000473:pathology; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D050497:Stillbirth
keywords: artificial neural networks; autopsy; forensic science; infant; logistic regression; radial basis function network; support system