Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology最新文献

{"title":"Before standardizing the postmortem diagnosis of sepsis, what exactly are we diagnosing?","authors":"Tijana Gojković, Tijana Petrović","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01359-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01359-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149223724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fetal death caused by intentional poisoning with Warfarin: a case report.","authors":"Dongmei Liu, Hewen Dong, Chao Liu, Sujing Zhang, Meng Du, Wentao Xia, Jianhua Zhang, Jiemin Chen","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01377-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01377-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We present a case of intrauterine fetal death resulting from deliberate warfarin administration to a pregnant woman. During the 18th week of gestation, the pregnant woman developed sudden, unexplained ecchymoses on both lower limbs. One week later, obstetric ultrasound confirmed the absence of fetal cardiac activity and movement, and clinical evaluation revealed significantly abnormal coagulation parameters with severely reduced activities of vitamin K-dependent factors FII (96% decrease), FVII (96% decrease), FIX (93% decrease), and FX (93% decrease). Then, labor was induced, leading to delivery of a stillborn fetus. Autopsy of the fetus demonstrated cerebral parenchymal hemorrhage, along with placental and fetal membrane tearing and hemorrhage. Toxicological analysis identified warfarin in maternal blood, urine, and fetal tissue samples, establishing it as the primary cause of fetal death. This report highlights the critical role of comprehensive toxicological and autopsy investigations in determining the etiology of unexpected fetal losses, particularly when maternal coagulopathy of unexplained origin is present.</p>","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Contacting next-of-kin for research consent following medico-legal autopsy: a practice-based study from Denmark.","authors":"Oscar Emil Puntervold, Mads Gustav Juul Skytte, Jacob Tfelt-Hansen, Christina Jacobsen, Kristine Boisen Olsen","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01371-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01371-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Obtaining informed consent from next-of-kin (NOK) for research use of medico-legal autopsy tissue is ethically sensitive and operationally complex. Although families may be receptive when approached appropriately, consent processes within medico-legal systems remain poorly described. This study aimed to describe response patterns, practical barriers, and experiences associated with contacting NOK for research consent following medico-legal autopsy. We conducted a retrospective evaluation of NOK contact attempts at the Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Copenhagen, in relation to a health science research project. Quantitative data were extracted from a consent database and call-log exports. Themes were identified from documented free-text notes of phone interactions. Among 173 eligible cases with at least one living NOK, consent was obtained in 120 cases (69.4%). Phone contact was attempted in most cases (94.2%). When contact was established, median call duration was 4.8 min (IQR 5.4), with a median of 2 attempts per case. No response occurred in 25.4% despite repeated contact attempts. NOK expressed altruistic motivations for consenting, but also raised questions about autopsy findings, hereditary risk, and tissue retention. Declines most often reflected reluctance to revisit the circumstances of the death or disrupt their own or other family members' grieving. In a Danish medico-legal setting, obtaining research consent from NOK was feasible, and consent was provided in most cases but required substantial effort. Consent conversations also revealed unmet informational needs from NOK, particularly regarding autopsy findings, cause of death, and tissue retention. Clear communication, appropriate timing, and structured follow-up may improve NOK experience and strengthen the ethical foundation of medico-legal research.</p>","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149165758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Separating sleep environment from sleep position in histologic comparisons of sudden infant death syndrome.","authors":"Ercan Yılmaz","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01373-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01373-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149165207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Electric death: forensic pathological analysis and candidate biomarkers for forensic diagnosis.","authors":"Hanhuan Peng, Xiaojin Yu, Rui Gu, Erwen Huang, Yaqing Tan, Guoliang Li, Longlong Suo, Runtao Ding, Hui Yao","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01378-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01378-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Electrical injury is a severe multisystem trauma that is characterized by high clinical risk and mortality. For forensic practitioners, the diagnosis of electrocution death depends primarily on typical electric marks, scene investigations, and medical case information, which essentially constitute an exclusionary diagnostic procedure. Establishing a reliable diagnostic method for electrocution death, particularly in cases without visible electric marks, remains an urgent challenge in routine forensic practice. We retrospectively analyzed forensic electrocution death cases to screen novel molecular biomarkers for the diagnosis of mark‑absent electrocution death. Focusing on electric shock-induced malignant arrhythmia and cutaneous metal deposition, we detected the expression of oxidative stress‑sensitive genes in myocardial tissue and Cu²⁺‑dependent cuproptosis‑related genes in palmar skin. The Cu²⁺ concentration in palmar skin, combined with the expression levels of skin genes (e.g., FDX1 and CXCL6) and myocardial genes (e.g., GCLM and PRDX4), may serve as potential biomarkers for the auxiliary diagnosis of mark‑absent electrocution death. The combined detection of skin and myocardial samples provides a valuable auxiliary diagnostic strategy for challenging forensic cases.</p>","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149106562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Validation of Cameriere's third molar maturity index (I3M) for forensic age estimation in a Moroccan population: a cross-sectional study.","authors":"Ahmed Belhouss, Zineb Safi-Eddine, Farid Bourzgui","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01370-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01370-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Forensic age estimation in living individuals is a critical component of medicolegal practice, particularly for determining whether a subject has reached the legal age of majority of 18 years. The Third Molar Maturity Index (I3M) proposed by Cameriere et al. provides a quantitative radiographic approach based on the ratio between open apical widths and tooth length of the mandibular third molar, with a widely validated cut-off value of 0.08. However, population-specific validation remains essential, as dental maturation is known to vary across ethnic groups, and to the best of our knowledge, there are no data available for North Africa, and in particular for Morocco. This study aimed to validate the I3M cut-off value of 0.08 for assessing the legal adult age of 18 years in a Moroccan population sample and to identify an optimal population-specific cut-off value using ROC curve analysis. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 629 digital panoramic radiographs from Moroccan patients aged 10 to 36.8 years (333 females, 296 males). The I3M was measured on the lower left third molar (tooth 38). Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive and negative predictive values, likelihood ratios, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) were calculated. Test ROC analysis was used to determine the optimal cut-off value. Using the standard I3M ≥ 0.08 cut-off, sensitivity was 79.71% (95% CI: 68.31-88.44%), specificity 93.28% (95% CI: 89.46-96.04%), and diagnostic accuracy 90.37% (95% CI: 86.61-93.36%). The AUC was 0.907. An optimal population-specific cut-off of I3M ≥ 0.049 was identified, yielding a sensitivity of 91.3% and specificity of 91.7%. The I3M is a valid and accurate forensic tool for distinguishing minors from adults in the Moroccan population. The standard cut-off of 0.08 demonstrated high specificity, thereby minimizing misclassification of minors as adults. A population-specific cut-off of 0.049 may offer improved balanced diagnostic performance. These findings provide the first I3M reference data for Morocco and support its integration into forensic age estimation protocols in North Africa.</p>","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149106533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Platinum and gold deposited in electrocution may represent metallization through dissolution of the conductor matrix.","authors":"Yumiko Motoyama, Eiji Kakizaki, Myu Tachibana, Kei Wada, Nobuhiro Yukawa","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01314-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01314-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149106551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Artificial intelligence in forensic genetics: a multi-database bibliometric and science-mapping analysis (2003-2026).","authors":"Gianmarco Sirago, Susanna Sabato, Biagio Solarino, Alessandro Dell'Erba, Davide Ferorelli","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01372-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01372-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Artificial intelligence, machine learning and computational prediction are entering forensic genetic workflows, from probabilistic DNA-profile interpretation to the prediction of externally visible characteristics, biogeographical ancestry and age. This study maps the structure of that literature and interprets it in terms of translational maturity, to support research prioritisation and validation agendas.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Two complementary retrieval arms were executed between 10 and 13 September 2026: a venue-anchored search of 80 forensic and genetics journals derived from the Scopus Source List, and a topic-only probe with no source restriction, both applied to Scopus and Web of Science. The probe was introduced to measure what a source-restricted strategy costs in recall, and was incorporated into the design once more than half of the additional records it returned proved eligible. All 728 unique records retrieved were screened for eligibility by two independent raters, with agreement computed on the independent codings (Cohen kappa 0.708 to 0.806). Analyses were computed on three corpora: performance indicators on all documents, conceptual structure on the records carrying index terms, and citation structure on Web of Science coverage.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The corpus comprises 520 documents from 108 sources and 1,908 authors, with 15.63% annual growth over complete years and 23.86 citations per document; four documents in five were published from 2017 onwards. The literature is organised around a single publishing nucleus accounting for 39.0% of documents and forming the entire first Bradford zone, alongside a dispersed tail of 100 sources that is more recent and substantially less cited; a quarter of the eligible literature lies outside the venue-anchored frame. Index-term co-occurrence analysis resolves into three thematic neighbourhoods spanning marker-based profiling and probabilistic interpretation, epigenetic age estimation, and sequencing with body-fluid identification. The number of clusters depends on the resolution parameter and on the composition of the corpus, and is reported with a formal stability analysis rather than as a finding. Contemporary neural paradigms are largely absent, and the two-arm design shows this absence to be a property of the field rather than of where it publishes.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Artificial intelligence has entered forensic genetics along distinct trajectories that differ in validation maturity, operational implementation and evidential admissibility. Validation conducted prospectively and across laboratories, uncertainty expressed in evidential terms, and reasoning that can be contested in court, rather than predictive performance alone, determine readiness for casework.</p>","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149106544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on: Neuropathological diagnoses and age-related differences in Finnish medico-legal autopsies of individuals aged 65 years and older.","authors":"Lei Gu, Jiaming Wang, Yuchen Liang, Haoxuan Yan, Licheng Lv","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01374-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01374-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149106592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"Defensive\" corpse dismemberment without prior criminal offence.","authors":"Johanna Preuß-Wössner, Ivana Gerling, Stefanie Klückmann, Claas Buschmann","doi":"10.1007/s12024-026-01367-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-026-01367-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The dismembered body of a 27-year-old man was found in a cesspit on a farm where he had lived with his father and his sister. At autopsy of the body with severed limbs and transected torso, an exploded beehive firecracker was found deeply stuck in the oral cavity. There were numerous petechiae in the mucosa of the eyes and in the skin of the face as well as signs of heat-induced trauma in the oral mucosa and acute pulmonary hyperinflation. Cause of death was asphyxiation. The 62-year-old father was charged with murder. According to his statement in court, his drunk son had attempted to provoke him by playing right-wing extremist music at high volume, putting on a steel helmet, and placing a firework in his mouth which he then lit himself after the father had left the room. The father claimed that, in order to spare his daughter the sight of her deceased brother, he had sawed up the body of his son by hand and disposed it in the cesspit. As the father's version could not be disproved, he was acquitted.</p>","PeriodicalId":12449,"journal":{"name":"Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149106043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}