Abstract

Hospitals use radiological techniques for diagnostic purposes and treating patients. But these techniques can also be used to determine the cause of death in deceased people. Radiological techniques are already being used in forensic investigations to obtain more information if a death occurs under suspicious circumstances. Additionally, they could be applied to obtain a better understanding of new illnesses, hereditary disease and side-effects of medicines. Most hospital do not use the techniques structurally for diagnostic or research purposes.

With the permission of the Public Prosecution Service, the police can use radiological techniques for forensic investigations. The advantage of radiological techniques in the case of a forensic investigation is that they yield information quickly. Radiological forensic investigations take place in the four hospitals in the Netherlands that have the requisite legal, forensic and radiological expertise, i.e., the Maastricht University Medical Center+, Reinier de Graaf Hospital in Delft, Meander Medical Centre in Amersfoort and the Groene Hart Hospital in Gouda.

Radiological techniques can also be used to better understand new illnesses, hereditary disease and side-effects of medicines. The body of the deceased remains intact, so the impact on the deceased's relatives and friends is lower than that of an autopsy. However, few hospitals in the Netherlands structurally apply radiological techniques in deceased people. The reason for this is that there is no standard budget reserved for this type of work. Cases of children who die at birth or shortly afterwards are an exception.

These are the conclusions of an exploratory study carried out by RIVM commissioned by the Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ANVS). We have examined how often hospitals in the Netherlands use radiological techniques for deceased persons, and why they choose to use these techniques.