A research team seeking to answer the question “will we solve crimes with radiomics?” recently presented the results of their experimental study at the Radiological Society of North America 106th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting.
Combustion is often applied to conceal corpses after murders. Therefore, establishing the timing of the combustion can provide fundamental details in forensic investigations. The research team, led by lead author Amalia Lupi, M.D., sought to assess the use of radiomics, which extracts data from clinical images, to reliably and accurately measure changes in bone structure due to fire exposure.
In their experiment, the researchers used high-resolution micro-CT to examine 15 samples of human fibulae both before and after direct exposure to fire for three combustion intervals. (Three samples were excluded after fragmentation during the second combustion.) From each sample, at each combustion interval, bone density and volume and 55 radiomic features were extracted.
“The results showed that radiomics was able to detect changes in the bone samples dependent on time of exposure to the fire,” the researchers said. “This study assesses the role of radiomics in characterizing time-related changes occurring in human bone samples exposed to fire and proposes a method that can be applied to provide additional information useful in determining the time and cause of death.”
For further analysis, Lupi said specific features can be applied to determine the interval of combustion.
Republished courtesy of RSNA.