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Background: Child abuse represents an important issue in the medico-legal and social context. In the last few decades, various aspects and mechanisms have been identified in child abuse case studies; however, constant research is needed in the field. With this paper, the authors will present a case of a new entity of Abusive Head Trauma that has come to the attention of medico-legal experts. Discussion: The trauma analysis performed on the cranio-encephalic district of the baby revealed quite peculiar lesions that led the authors to exclude that the injuries had been solely caused by violent shaking of the baby's head, as suggested by Shaken Baby Syndrome. Instead, the authors hypothesised that another lesion mechanism had been added to this one, namely latero-lateral cranial compression. The comprehensive and exhaustive analysis of the case led the authors to present a new possible entity in child abuse trauma, namely 'Compressed Baby Head'. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, in the current literature, no similar clinical cases have ever been described. Thus, the case's uniqueness deserves to be brought to the attention of experts and the entire scientific community, as well as medical personnel, paediatricians, and reanimators. These professional figures are the first individuals who may encounter complex clinical cases such as the one presented in this paper; thus, they need to know how to properly manage the case and ensure protection for the abused infants and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autoerotic asphyxia is defined as a self-induced cerebral anoxia in an autoerotic context. This practice is used to induce a state of hypoxia to elicit or enhance sexual excitement and orgasm. Autoerotic deaths are very rare events and include different mechanism such as asphyxia by hanging, ligature or electrocution, overdressing wrapping and more. According to the literature, male subjects are reported as the main victims of these events. In this paper we describe an interesting case of a 54-year-old Italian man, who accidentally deceased by placing a hemp rope around his neck during autoerotic asphyxial activities. The rope examination revealed an interesting safety mechanism: a means to adjust its diameter through a supplementary rope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2009.09.014 Byline: Valeria Santoro (a), Antonio De Donno (a), Maricla Marrone (a), Carlo Pietro Campobasso (b), Francesco Introna (a) Keywords: Forensic age estimation; Criminal proceedings; Dental age; Skeletal maturity Abstract: In recent years, skeletal age determination has become increasingly important in criminal investigations for determining the age of living individuals. To increase diagnostic accuracy, a physical examination, an X-ray examination of the left hand, as well as a dental examination including the determination of the dental status and an X-ray of the dentition should always be performed. In this work, the authors analyze a sample of 52 illegal immigrants who came under their observation in the period from May 1989 to September 2007. A statistical analysis of the results of dental and skeletal age estimations was performed as well as an analysis between the reported and assessed ages. The results showed a significant difference between reported age and assessed biological age (p Author Affiliation: (a) Section of Legal Medicine, University of Bari, P.zza G. Cesare 11, 70124 Bari, Italy (b) Department of Health Sciences, University of Molise, Via De Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso, Italy Article History: Received 7 October 2008; Revised 31 July 2009; Accepted 22 September 2009

The Authors describe two cases of alleged malpractice due to overfilling. The aim of this article is to underline some medico-legal aspects regarding the quantity of extruded material which may be considered acceptable and the consequent damage to the patient. Two cases are presented here: In the first case, the dentist's liability is clear due to excessive extrusion of endodontic material beyond the apical region combined with incomplete obturation of the canals. In the second case however, because two different dentists were involved, establishing the connection of causality between their work and the damage reported by the patient was not easy. This situation makes it difficult to establish the limits of potential responsibility, coupled with the complete absence of radiographic signs of periapical rarefaction and the small quantities of material beyond the apex. From a medico-legal point of view, a dentist may be held responsible for compensation and financial expenses of a patient for restoration of damage resulting from a dental procedure.Italian guidelines offer no indications as to when overfilling should be considered the result of a procedural error, or if it fits within the range labelled as "acceptable" and this gap offers extremely subjective interpretations of legal consultants. So, it would therefore be useful to adopt more precise qualitative/dimensional parameters, keeping in mind that the guidelines offer therapeutic recommendations and are not rigid protocols.

The procedures that allow identification have evolved during the time inevitably, as a consequence of ever new technologies that can simplify and widen their own application. Nevertheless, it is interesting to focus the attention on how, although time goes by and the use of complex tools, these techniques are based on principles already used by our predecessors and able to resist to the changes imposed by our age. Indeed, if DNA studies can be considered to be recent discovery, the other identification techniques find their reason in past ages; for example dactyloscopy science, identification through bones, forensic odontology that represent milestones of this discipline. Our study underlines that a few aspect of this science have been completely abandoned, some of them are used in the recent identification inquires, other represent a milestone in the development of this science.