Fracture Dating

In a forensic medical setting the radiologist, pathologist, and/or anthropologist is often asked by the police or prosecution to assess the age of a fracture. In living victims, dating is focused on the time elapsed between the traumatic event and the imaging or examination of the fracture. In deceased victims, the fracture age may be used to assess the interval between the traumatic event and death of the victim. This information can be valuable in legal context for multiple reasons. First, it can be instrumental to police investigation in defining a timeline, which can be used to corroborate or falsify testimonies or to exclude specific scenarios or suspects. Second, it can help to establish the relation between the traumatic event and eventual death, making it possible to show inconsistencies between the more or less objective forensic medical dating and the subjective dating based on the clinical history and the reason provided for the injury [1]. Finally, in case of multiple fractures, dating of the lesions might help to differentiate between a single and multiple traumatic events. In children, depending on their age, the effects of trauma and the signs of subsequent healing may be apparent for months or even years.