Journal of Forensic Research

Aim: Detection of drugs of abuse is interesting in legal procedures. The aims of the study were: 1: Evaluating the detection time of drugs of abuse in saliva in an arrested population, drugs consumers that are taken into judicial custody in a maximum time of 72 hours from their detention. 2- Verifying analytical results with self reported reference of the subjects. Participants: 50 oral fluid samples coming from arrested people that are taken into judicial custody in police officer's courts of the city of Barcelona. The study was carried out in the Laboratory of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Catalonia. The design study was a cross sectional study. Drug tested were: cocaine, amphetamines and related compounds, cannabis and opiates. The time of previous consumption was of 1-3 days. Measurements: The oral fluid samples were analysed by gas- chromatography-mass spectrometry. Findings: Positive results were obtained in 40% of the samples. Cocaine was detected in the 73.9% of positive results to this drug. Cannabis was detected in the 28.5%, Opiates was detected in the 23, 1%. Amphetamines were not detected. Conclusions: It is important to stand out the high rate of cocaine positive results in relation with the time passed and abstinence consumption of 1-3 days. Oral fluid may be a good sample for cocaine detection in drug consumers.

Forensic or scientific practices may require producing orthopantomography of dry skulls, that lack soft tissue, therefore modifications on the usual technique should be necessary. With the objective of standardizing the postmortem digital and analogue panoramic radiography this research produced a single a digital radiography and 13 analogue panoramic images, using different exposure configurations and four different objects to try to overcome the effects of the lack of soft tissue radiation absorption on the analog radiographs. A gel based ice pack, a 20 mm dental wax block, and a 0.5 mm metallic foil were placed in different points of the device. Also a previously exposed and developed film was placed inside the cassette between the unexposed film and the intensifying screen. The images were presented to 15 dentists of several specialties, who graded and ranked the images. In conclusion, the digital panoramic was easily obtained at a 60 kV and 2 mA settings and on analog equipments the use of two films inside the cassette achieved best results with 63 kV and 06 mA exposure settings.

In this study, we are reporting the concordance study between profiles from AmpFlSTR ® SGM plus™ and that of PowerPlex ® 16 system kits in Bangladeshi Bangali population. DNA samples from 234 unrelated Bangladeshi Bangali individuals were evaluated employing both the SGM plus™ and PowerPlex ® 16 system human identification kits. Complete consistency was observed in 233 out of 234 profiles which represents substantial degree of concordance amounting 99.57% between these two kits. Only one discrepancy encompassing the dropout of allele 12 at D16S539 loci in PowerPlex ® 16 system was observed. Sequence analysis revealed two mutational events; one at 16 bp distal and another next to the 3′ end of the PowerPlex 16 reverse primer of D16S539 locus. This study has shown the significance of using of alternative set of primer to address the false homozygosity issue as well as of bringing attention regarding the fact of discrepant typing from different sets of primers to the scientific community during database handling and identity or kinship investigations.

The frequency of thoraco- omphalo-ischiopagus tripus or conjoined twins (CT) is quite rare of mozygotic twinnings, and they are classified as unions of symmetrical CT. A case of conjoined twins with thoraco- omphaloischiopagus type is presented here as well as a review of differential diagnosis. The twins had two heads, two pairs of upper limbs and three lower limbs. They also shared thorax, abdomen and pelvis with a single beating heart.