Identifizierung anhand von mindestens zwei zeitfern von einer Person angefertigten Röntgenaufnahmen des Sinus frontalis

The identification of unknown remains based on x-rays is an accepted and practised method in legal medicine. X-rays of frontal sinuses are particularly conducive because of their lifelong constancy, most individual and typical peculiarity as well as their resistance against peri- and postmortal exterior impacts. This thesis analyses the possibility of an automatical identification of one individual by correct matching of at least two x-rays of the skull taken at different points of time. 1066 digitized routine x-rays of 452 persons from the archive of the university hospital of Aachen were examined with regard to the possbility of a frontal sinus comparison. 163 persons (36,1%) were not suitable because of different reasons, mostly due to the absence of the frontal sinus. 702 digitized x-rays of the remaining 289 persons were measured using the image editing program KS 400 Imaging System (Carl Zeiss Vision GmbH, 1997) and 18 characteristic values were compared in a Microsoft Office Access 2003 based programm. The automatical comparison achieved a correct assignment of x-rays to one person in 55% of the cases, 45% were mismatched. The direct visual comparison of x-rays proved very reliable. Pathologic changes which cause the impossibility of a positive identification are very rare (0,2%). The time interval between different x-rays does not affect the correct assignment to one individual. Even children in growth can clearly be identified by comparing frontal sinus x-rays. One case is an adult with severe changes in form and size of frontal sinus, because of which the identification based on the outline of the frontal sinus was impossible