Forensic diagnostics of the kind of a sharp traumatic object in expert practice

Abstract

The scientific work is a fragment of the scientific-research study conducted at the Department of Forensic Medicine and Medical Law “Expert Diagnostics of Changes of Biological Tissues and Human Media by Morphological and Laboratory Indices to Solve Topical Issues of Forensic Science and Practice” (state registration number 0118U001191). Summary. The survey article deals with explaining the existing methods and searching new perspective ones concerning forensic diagnostics of the kind of a sharp traumatic object.    A considerable increase of lethal cases caused by trauma and crimes most frequently committed with the use of different kinds of sharp objects is stated to occur nowadays in Ukraine and the whole world.  In general structure of fatal injuries traumas caused by sharp objects are second after blunt injuries. At the same time, in all the cases of expertise of bodily injuries caused by different kinds of sharp traumatic objects and tools a question arises concerning accurate visualization of bodily injuries and their identification. Therefore, from year to year an important value in forensic practice is given to spatial, integral visualization of morphological structures in the area of injury and certain separate elements of a traumatic object. It will provide more accurate, visible, effective and reliable identification of a sharp tool or object provoking injury. In different times specialists in forensic science demonstrated variable approaches to solution of the above mentioned tasks. Identification studies dealing with determination of a tool in case of traumas made by sharp objects, first of all piercing-cutting ones, are conducted in the direction of investigation of morphological changes in case of damage of the skin and internal organs, morphometric parameters of wound canals, assessment of a blade lip effect on morphology of piercing-cutting injury, identification of an individual who committed a crime, detection of trasological properties of a traumatic means, and modeling circumstances of events, etc.  In recent decades, in the epoch of an advanced development of scientific-technical progress, modern researchers introduce actively up-to-date medical technologies into medical science. The methods of 3D-modeling and 3D-reconstruction take a leading place among them. Implementation of 3D technologies into forensic practice enables to reduce error probability to minimum. Meanwhile, the majority of 3D-scanners are expensive and mostly directed to solve more specific forensic tasks, scanning only small or, on the contrary, only large objects in particular. From the practical point of view an important value in establishing the mechanisms of injuries in case of trauma and identification of a traumatic object belongs to modern methods of designing three dimensional objects on the basis of digital photogrammetry followed by further computer processing and 3D-printing of volumetric models, since it enables to register poorly seen morphological signs of injuries and find them.  At the same time, the analysis of domestic and foreign literature is indicative of the fact that the issues of forensic diagnostics concerning the kind of a sharp traumatic object by means of three dimensional spatial reconstruction of morphological elements of the soft tissues injuries and wound canal on the body of a victim remain unsolved.