Mirzaei S, Knoll P, Lipp R W, Wenzel T, Koriska K, Köhn H
Department of Nuclear Medicine and L Boltzmann Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Wilhelminenspital, Vienna, Austria.
Lancet. 1998 Sep 19;352(9132):949-51. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(98)05049-1.
In most developed countries, survivors of physical torture inflicted for political, religious, or ethnic reasons face ever more stringent review when seeking asylum. In Austria, asylum seekers are required by immigration authorities to undergo medical examination as part of the review. Bone scintigraphy can detect bone lesions that are not detectable clinically or radiologically. We assessed the value of bone scintigraphy as corroboration of alleged injuries.
Human-rights organisations referred 25 asylum seekers to us from countries where torture is practised. We included patients who claimed to have been beaten by the security forces in their home country because of political or religious conviction or ethnic origin. Injuries had been inflicted 4 months to 5 years earlier. The patients (three women, 22 men) from 12 countries were categorised retrospectively into two groups: group A (n=12), tortured with blows from hard objects, and group B (n=13), tortured with blows from fists and kicks. We also used a control group of 25 individuals with the same age and sex distribution from the same countries who had no history of torture.
In group A, bone scans showed abnormalities in the area of alleged injury in all patients, whereas radiography was positive in only five patients. In group B, bone scans in the alleged areas of damage were positive in seven patients, but radiography yielded no positive outcomes. Among the controls there was one abnormal scan due to a known coxarthrosis.
Our preliminary results suggest that bone scintigraphy is a sensitive, non-invasive tool to document trauma some years after the actual injury.
在大多数发达国家，因政治、宗教或种族原因遭受身体折磨的幸存者在寻求庇护时面临着越来越严格的审查。在奥地利，移民当局要求寻求庇护者接受医学检查作为审查的一部分。骨闪烁扫描可以检测出临床或放射学上无法检测到的骨损伤。我们评估了骨闪烁扫描作为佐证所称伤害的价值。
人权组织将25名来自存在酷刑的国家的寻求庇护者转介给我们。我们纳入了那些声称因政治或宗教信仰或种族出身而在本国遭到安全部队殴打之人。受伤时间在4个月至5年前。这12个国家中的患者（3名女性，22名男性）被回顾性地分为两组：A组（n = 12），遭受硬物打击折磨；B组（n = 13），遭受拳打脚踢折磨。我们还使用了一个由25名来自相同国家、年龄和性别分布相同且无酷刑史的个体组成的对照组。
在A组中，骨扫描显示所有患者在所称受伤部位均有异常，而X线摄影仅5名患者呈阳性。在B组中，所称损伤部位的骨扫描7名患者呈阳性，但X线摄影未得出阳性结果。在对照组中，有一次扫描异常是由于已知的髋关节炎。
我们的初步结果表明骨闪烁扫描是一种敏感的、非侵入性的工具，可用于记录实际受伤数年后的创伤情况。
