الفهرس 
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Abstract
Forensic radiology as part of all forensic specialties and anthropology gives us a lot of information that cannot be replaced. Radiology in medicine in general is well known and its importance is recognized. Forensic radiology is as important in forensic work and its uses can broadly be divided into identification, determination of the time of injury or death, cause of injury or death, locating evidence, safety and security.
The role of forensic radiology in identification that is beneficial to the work of the forensic pathologist is also the same for the anthropologist. It also helps guiding the direction of the search for evidence and makes more accurate work that keeps evidence from being lost.
The nature of the recent advances in radiology make it a very good way to store information and evidence for prolonged times. As a normal autopsy is not repeatable and invasive, radiology provides an alternative that mostly compensates and is easily stored for future review.
These advantages help to identify the remains that are found as records kept are almost as accurate as finger prints. The types of radiology material give different information about if human, sex, age, stature, race, recent or ancient and individual specific information; the most commonly known is dental radiograph comparison among others.
The cause or manner of injury of death can be identified as well. This is directly by finding the cause like water in the lungs, shrapnel and bullets, thus providing hard evidence. It can indirectly do so by the radiologic features that an injury may have like the manner bones are broken in children. Locating bullets, number, caliber and direction of fire can be life saving; as strange courses in the body can lead to emboli and missed internal injury.
Large improvements in the detection of abuse of children and adults are seen. The characteristic injuries of abuse in children and adults are many and should be known to every doctor. Children get injuries all the time but by noticing the common patterns of repetition and multiple fractures at different stages of healing as the most important signs it can be isolated. The abuse of spouses and the elderly is more common than is known. In all these cases the radiologic evidence is crucial and is considered the most important hard evidence in the court.
The use of radiology in other areas includes smuggling, larceny and forgery among others. Using radiology stop the growing problem of smuggling has taken other direction other than screening baggage. Some smugglers transport in their body the illegal materials in an attempt to avoid detection. Some pay heavy prices with their life when it leaks into their body. The storage small bags in their guts can be seen by x-ray. Auto-theft and forgery of art are detected by radiology now.
Forensic toxicology benefits from radiology in detecting poisons and the use of illegal substances. This is a wide field that can generally be divided into direct and indirect detection. Detection by radiology is in the abdomen, bone, soft tissue and nervous system. Direct detection is by viewing the poison itself and that applies for a few poisons with iron in their composition. Most poisons are detected indirectly by the effect they have on their surrounding or on tissue.
The use of ultrasound in forensic radiology is still limited. It is mostly used in tissue sampling. The use in detecting the skeletal age in the living is under research and shows promise as a non-ionizing and simple way.
CT is making great progress in the field as it has high resolution and 3D capability. It shows the bony injuries better than MRI. Is faster and cheaper but exposes to more radiation.
MRI surpasses CT in the resolution and visualization of soft tissue. Neurological damage and trauma is highly visualized by this method. Spectroscopy gives a good insight into time of death at very good accuracy.
Nuclear Medicine is limited in use as mainly a tool for detecting the skeletal injury of child abuse, age determination and diagnosis of brain death.
The collection and fusion of all this data and combining it with surface scanning data placed in a computer gives a reproduction of the body scanned. In the computer we have the ability to manipulate and dissect the body as we like with no loss of evidence.
The future of Forensic radiology is vast. With the introduction of virtual autopsy and its ability to mostly replace the classic autopsy, thus giving fast results using the combined methods of CT and MRI. With more advanced technology the use of radiology in traffic accidents, anthropology and the formation of centralized forensic radiology data bases are becoming a reality.
Conclusions and Recommendations
1- Radiological examination should be a part of routine forensic examination in suspected traumatic and criminal cases.
2- Forensic examiners should use radiological methods in cases of fire arm injuries.
3- Radiological evidence is crucial in cases of child abuse and is considered as hard evidence in the court.
4- Forensic examiners should be aware of the new trends in radiological methods of diagnosis.
5- CT and MRI has great advances and should play important role in autopsy
6- Virtual autopsy techniques has been used in developed contries and should be introduced in investigations of crimes in our country.