Prieto-Castelló M J, Hernández del Rincón J P, Pérez-Sirvent C, Alvarez-Jiménez P, Pérez-Cárceles M D, Osuna E, Luna A
Faculty of Medicine, Legal and Forensic Medicine Division, University of Miguel Hernández, Apdo correos 18, San Juan, Alicante, Spain.
Forensic Sci Int. 2007 Oct 25;172(2-3):112-8. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2006.12.014. Epub 2007 Feb 16.
The determination of the date of death from bone remains is of scientific interest but also has important legal implications. The establishment of the postmortem interval (PMI) is a very complex problem because of the great number of intrinsic factors that may alter the normal course of postmortem change, such as the age, sex, constitution and previous physiological and pathological states of the subject, and external factors. In order to evaluate the utility of X-ray diffraction and the measurement of some components in dating bone remains, a total of 69 long bones from 69 different cadavers (41 males, 28 females) with a mean age of 68 years (S.D.=17.6, range 12-97) were used. The bones were removed from cement tombs of Murcia Cemetery, where they had lain for documented times of between 7 and 54 years (S.D.=11.6, mean time 17.6 years). We have studied potassium, sulphur, nitrogen, urea, total protein, phosphorus, and some X-ray diffraction (XRD) parameters related to the degree of crystallinity of the mineral component in medullar and cortical bone zones to establish which of the two provides the most useful information for calculating the PMI. In the overall analysis of our data, we believe that the use of both XRD and biochemical analyses (especially of urea, potassium and sulphur) particularly in the cortical zone of the bone could be an alternative method for dating osseous remains.
从骨骼遗骸确定死亡日期不仅具有科学意义，还具有重要的法律意义。确定死后间隔时间（PMI）是一个非常复杂的问题，因为有大量内在因素可能改变死后变化的正常进程，比如个体的年龄、性别、体质以及先前的生理和病理状态，还有外部因素。为了评估X射线衍射以及测量某些成分在测定骨骼遗骸年代方面的效用，我们使用了来自69具不同尸体（41名男性，28名女性）的69根长骨，这些尸体的平均年龄为68岁（标准差 = 17.6，范围12 - 97岁）。这些骨头取自穆尔西亚公墓的水泥墓穴，它们在那里放置的记录时间为7至54年（标准差 = 11.6，平均时间17.6年）。我们研究了钾、硫、氮、尿素、总蛋白、磷，以及一些与髓质和皮质骨区域矿物质成分结晶度相关的X射线衍射（XRD）参数，以确定两者中哪一个能为计算PMI提供最有用的信息。在对我们数据的整体分析中，我们认为同时使用XRD和生化分析（特别是尿素、钾和硫的分析），尤其是在骨骼的皮质区域，可能是测定骨骼遗骸年代的一种替代方法。
