Bernhard Neumayer1,
Eva Hassler1, 2, Thomas Widek1, Kathrin
Ogris1, Eva Scheurer1
1Clinical
Forensic Imaging, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, Graz, Styria, Austria; 2Department
of Radiology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Styria, Austria
The estimation of the time since the origin of a hematoma is often needed to reconstruct juridically relevant events. This estimation is currently done by visual inspection which has been shown to be unreliable. This study presents an MRI model to estimate the age of soft tissue hematomas using standard clinical sequences. The application of this method results in a 95% confidence interval of approximately &[plusmn]1 day for hematoma ages of up to 2 weeks and, thus, shows considerable advantages compared to the current standard.