Comparison of CT Values between Thrombus and Postmortem Clot Based on Cadaveric Pulmonary Angiography / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To explore the difference in CT values between pulmonary thromboembolism and postmortem clot in postmortem CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) to further improve the application value of virtual autopsy.@*METHODS@#Postmortem CTPA data with the definite cause of death from 2016 to 2019 were collected and divided into pulmonary thromboembolism group (n=4), postmortem clot group (n=5), and control group (n=5). CT values of pulmonary trunk and left and right pulmonary artery contents in each group were measured and analyzed statistically.@*RESULTS@#The average CT value in the pulmonary thromboembolism group and postmortem clot group were (168.4±53.8) Hu and (282.7±78.0) Hu, respectively, which were lower than those of the control group (1 193.0±82.9) Hu (P<0.05). The average CT value of the postmortem clot group was higher than that of the pulmonary thromboembolism group (P<0.05).@*CONCLUSIONS@#CT value is reliable and feasible as a relatively objective quantitative index to distinguish pulmonary thromboembolism and postmortem clot in postmortem CTPA. At the same time, it can provide a scientific basis to a certain extent for ruling out pulmonary thromboembolism deaths.

Automatic Identification of Brain Injury Mechanism Based on Deep Learning / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To apply the convolutional neural network (CNN) Inception_v3 model in automatic identification of acceleration and deceleration injury based on CT images of brain, and to explore the application prospect of deep learning technology in forensic brain injury mechanism inference.@*METHODS@#CT images from 190 cases with acceleration and deceleration brain injury were selected as the experimental group, and CT images from 130 normal brain cases were used as the control group. The above-mentioned 320 imaging data were divided into training validation dataset and testing dataset according to random sampling method. The model classification performance was evaluated by the accuracy rate, precision rate, recall rate, F1-value and AUC value.@*RESULTS@#In the training process and validation process, the accuracy rate of the model to classify acceleration injury, deceleration injury and normal brain was 99.00% and 87.21%, which met the requirements. The optimized model was used to test the data of the testing dataset, the result showed that the accuracy rate of the model in the test set was 87.18%, and the precision rate, recall rate, F1-score and AUC of the model to recognize acceleration injury were 84.38%, 90.00%, 87.10% and 0.98, respectively, to recognize deceleration injury were 86.67%, 72.22%, 78.79% and 0.92, respectively, to recognize normal brain were 88.57%, 89.86%, 89.21% and 0.93, respectively.@*CONCLUSIONS@#Inception_v3 model has potential application value in distinguishing acceleration and deceleration injury based on brain CT images, and is expected to become an auxiliary tool to infer the mechanism of head injury.

Logistic Regression Analysis of the Mechanism of Blunt Brain Injury Inference Based on CT Images / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To study the correlation between CT imaging features of acceleration and deceleration brain injury and injury degree.@*METHODS@#A total of 299 cases with acceleration and deceleration brain injury were collected and divided into acceleration brain injury group and deceleration brain injury group according to the injury mechanism. Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and Glasgow coma scale (GCS), combined with skull fracture, epidural hematoma (EDH), subdural hematoma (SDH) and brain contusion on the same and opposite sides of the stress point were selected as the screening indexes. χ2 test was used for primary screening, and binary logistic regression analysis was used for secondary screening. The indexes with the strongest correlation in acceleration and deceleration injury mechanism were selected.@*RESULTS@#χ2 test showed that skull fracture and EDH on the same side of the stress point; EDH, SDH and brain contusion on the opposite of the stress point; SAH, GCS were correlated with acceleration and deceleration injury (P<0.05). According to binary logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio (OR) of EDH on the same side of the stress point was 2.697, the OR of brain contusion on the opposite of the stress point was 0.043 and the OR of GCS was 0.238, suggesting there was statistically significant (P<0.05).@*CONCLUSIONS@#EDH on the same side of the stress point, brain contusion on the opposite of the stress point and GCS can be used as key indicators to distinguish acceleration and deceleration injury mechanism. In addition, skull fracture on the same side of the stress point, EDH and SDH on the opposite of the stress point and SAH were relatively weak indicators in distinguishing acceleration and deceleration injury mechanism.

Bibliometrics Analysis in English and Chinese Literature on Drowning in Forensic Medicine from 1991 to 2020 / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To explore the research hotspots and development trends of the field of forensic drowning from 1991 to 2020 by bibliometrics methods.@*METHODS@#Based on Web of Science, CNKI database, Wanfang Data knowledge service platform, python 3.9.2, CiteSpace 5.8.R3, Gephi 0.9.2, etc. were used to analyze the publishing trends, countries/regions, institutions, authors and topics of the study on drowning.@*RESULTS@#A total of 631 English literature were obtained, including 59 articles from Chinese authors, and 386 Chinese literature were obtained. The Chinese and English journals with the largest number of related literatures were Chinese Journal of Forensic Science (80 articles) and Forensic Science International (106 articles), respectively. Japan published the most articles in English, and China ranked third. Osaka City Univ (Japan, 28 articles) published the most English articles, and Guangzhou Forens Sci Inst (China, 22 articles) ranked second. Among Chinese literature, Guangzhou Forens Sci Inst (32 articles) published the most. The topic analysis of Chinese and English literature showed that diatom examination, virtual autopsy, postmortem biochemical examination, the nature of death, and postmortem submersion interval were the hot spots of current research, but English literature had more studies on new technologies and methods, while Chinese literature was more inclined to practice, application and experience summary.@*CONCLUSIONS@#The number of literature in forensic medicine on drowning is relatively stable. The scope of international and domestic collaborations in this field is still limited. The automated examination of diatoms, the establishment of diatom DNA barcodes and virtual autopsy will be the most important research hotspots in the coming period and are expected to achieve breakthroughs in drowning diagnosis, drowning location inference, postmortem submersion interval estimation, etc.

Analysis of Forensic Sciences Literature in SCIE from 2008 to 2017 / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To analyze the literature on forensic sciences indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded （SCIE） in recent 10 years, and to understand the research status, characteristics and trends in the field of forensic sciences.@*METHODS@#Literature on forensic sciences from 2008 to 2017 in Web of Science （WoS） was retrieved. The documents number and geographical distribution, document types, source titles, organizations, research areas, authors, funding agencies, and the high cited articles were detected. The impact factors （IF） of journals were retrieved in Journal Citation Reports （JCR）. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics.@*RESULTS@#From 2008 to 2017, there were 21 001 documents on forensic sciences in SCIE. The main document type was articles, with English as the major language. With regards to research areas, pathology has the largest number of papers worldwide, and genetics and heredity has the largest number of publications in mainland China. Among the 18 journals where the documents was published, Forensic Science International ranks the first on publication count, and Forensic Science International Genetics has the highest IF （5.637） in the JCR 2017. In 2017, the number of papers from mainland China increased by 48.50% compared with 2016, which was higher than the global increase （32.63%） and the top-5 countries in terms of number of publications （the US, Germany, the UK, Australia, Italy）. The average document count per organization is 1.98 worldwide and 1.17 in mainland China, respectively. The publication number per author is 0.53 worldwide and 0.36 in mainland China, respectively. Around 28.17% of the publications were funded, with National Natural Science Foundation of China （NSFC） as the Top 1 funding agency （192 papers）. Among the documents with citations, the most cited publication has been cited for 366 times.@*CONCLUSIONS@#The yearly numbers of publications on forensic sciences are increasing during recent 10 years. Focusing on the mainland China, there would be more high-quality papers with the steady funding of NSFC.