Postmortem Radiology and Digital Imaging: From Traumatic Injuries to Natural Death

The ability of radiology to provide evidence is characterized not only by high diagnostic credibility but also by important documentary power-seduced medicolegal ascertainers. For the characteristics, postmortem computed tomography (CT) is the most used imaging technique in forensic field, thanks to high resolution, rapid examination times, and its ability to adapt study parameters to each case and reconstruct images. Although this, postmortem imaging preceded autopsy in many forensic institutes as a routine practice, the field of forensic radiology is suggested to evolve to an autonomous subspecialty between forensic medicine and radiology. Performing CT imaging before autopsy, especially in cases of traumatic injury with open skull fractures, can detect pneumocephalus and cerebral venous and arterial gas emboli. Since magnetic resonance imaging had been considered as a further and higher-level technique of imaging, deserving to be used only in specific condition, and as a powerful diagnostic tool, there are not enough studies about its application in the forensic field.