Vitality and wound-age estimation in forensic pathology: review and future prospects

Determining the age of a wound is challenging in forensic pathology, but it can contribute to the reconstruction of crime scenes and lead to arrest of suspects. Forensic scholars have tended to focus on evaluating wound vitality and determining the time elapsed since the wound was sustained. Recent...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Na Li, Qiuxiang Du, Rufeng Bai, Junhong Sun
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press 2020-01-01
Series:Forensic Sciences Research
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20961790.2018.1445441
Description
Summary:Determining the age of a wound is challenging in forensic pathology, but it can contribute to the reconstruction of crime scenes and lead to arrest of suspects. Forensic scholars have tended to focus on evaluating wound vitality and determining the time elapsed since the wound was sustained. Recent progress in forensic techniques, particularly high-throughput analyses, has enabled evaluation of materials at the cellular and molecular levels, as well as simultaneous assessment of multiple markers. This paper provides an update on wound-age estimation in forensic pathology, summarizes the recent literature, and considers useful additional information provided by each marker. Finally, the future prospects for estimating wound age in forensic practise are discussed with the hope of providing something useful for further study.
ISSN:2096-1790
2471-1411