Is digital autopsy the future of forensic pathology? State of art and new acquisition based on iDASS™ system

The main task of forensic investigation is to document, to analyze and to interpret scientific findings in a comprehensible way for the court. In forensic medicine, the expertise of forensic examiners is needed to understand and interpret the medically related scientific parts of an investigation. The main aspects to be assessed in examinations of the deceased are the cause and manner of death, the vitality of suffered injuries in order to get evidence-based forensic reconstructions. Forensic science has experienced revolutionary changes in different fields, such as genetics, crime scene investigation methods, and toxicology. Forensic pathology, by contrast, still utilizes the time-old, evidence-based methods introduced centuries ago, such as the dissection of the corpse, the organ examination, and the oral description with written documentation of the findings obtained. The main tools used are scalpels, verbal descriptions and photographs. In recent times, interest has grown across the world into the possibility of the use of multi detector computed tomography (CT) as an adjunct or alternative to the invasive autopsy. The aim of this PhD project was to determine, through a systematic review of the literature, the most up-to-date consensus in terms of correlation between data obtained by classic autopsy and data obtained by means of digital autopsy. Moreover, the project sought to verify the validity of a 3D reconstruction software of CT images, applied to 25 forensic cases studied at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Verona.