Perspectives of the study of cutting and stabbing damages caused by knives with various spine thicknesses

Abstract

Injuries caused by pointed or bladed objects cover the biggest part of all injuries caused by sharp objects.
 The last decades of scientific studies in forensic medicine have dedicated to forensic medicolegal traumatology due to a steady growth in the number of forensic examinations connected with mechanical injuries. Data about the morphology, mechanism, and biomechanical causation of cutting and stabbing damages have been studied and summarized. Some morphological features of cutting and stabbing damages of osseous tissue appeared according to material cutting theory. Forensic identification of pointed or bladed articles was examined according to features of injuries on human tissues and clothes.
 Nowadays, scientific literature shows that a knifes spine is considered the traumatic part of a blade. In the identification and examination of the pointed or bladed trace-forming objects, a spine zone is used. There has been an overview on the influence on the trace-formation process of knife edges. However, the morphology of pointed or bladed injuries of the bones according to the thickness of a blade has not been examined comprehensively.
 To improve forensic research of injuries of flat bones (os planum) caused by pointed or bladed articles based on a complex of morphological features, experimental studies using cadaveric materials are needed.