Various kinds of etiological factors play a role in chronic sinusitis, and foreign bodies in the sinuses are one of the etiological factors. A 44-year-old man attended our outpatient clinic with complaints of headache, nasal congestion, and postnasal drainage. He had a history of gunshot accident 1 year ago, and his paranasal computed tomography revealed a bullet-shaped, radiopaque foreign body...

577 EDITORIAL Documenting, quantifying, intervening in and preventing interpersonal violence is a leading global public health challenge of this decade. Apart from HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria – where violence arguably plays an exacerbating role – what other disease process claims more than half a million lives annually, generating a burden of 'approximately 1400 deaths a day, the equivalent of thr...

Back-spattered bloodstain patterns are often important in investigations of cranial gunshot fatalities, particularly where there is doubt whether the death is suicide or homicide. Back-spatter is the projection of blood and tissue back toward the firearm (Davidson et al. 2012, Kunz et al. 2013), and the location of back-spatter on the victim’s body and clothes can yield important clues (an exam...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an important cause of women's health and socio-familial severe problems, the most extreme being the victims' homicide. This is the first nationwide Portuguese autopsy-based and judicial-proven study about female intimate partner homicide. At least 62 women over 15 years old were killed by current or former men-intimate partners, corresponding to an IPV-related...

An estimated 115,000 firearm injuries occur annually in the United States, and approximately 70% are nonfatal (1). Retained bullet fragments (RBFs) are an infrequently reported, but important, cause of lead toxicity; symptoms are often nonspecific and can appear years after suffering a gunshot wound (2,3). Adult blood lead level (BLL) screening is most commonly indicated for monitoring of occup...

According to an old empiric rule related to suicidal gunshot wound still in use, suicides will rarely shoot through their clothing, but will put it aside to expose the nude skin. A bullet defect in victim's clothing was often interpreted as a suspicious finding. In our article, which is based on retrospective consecutive study of gunshot fatalities from 1980 to 2004, where all autopsies were pe...

Background Firearm – related injuries of the thorax and heart are a major problem worldwide. Mortality rate in non-cardiac thoracic injuries is very low compared with that of cardiac injury. Because of the complexity of the injury a gunshot wound to the heart has the highest mortality rate. The rate of thoracic aorta injuries is burdened with a high mortality (80-90%) and management of this inj...

Gunshot residue (GSR) is produced when a firearm is discharged and is routinely used in the forensic reconstruction of incidents involving firearms. SEM-EDX with automated detection and analysis software was used to investigate the extent of GSR secondary transfer following the discharge of a firearm. A series of experiments, which mimicked real-world scenarios, was set up to explore these unde...

BACKGROUND A craniocerebral trauma caused by firearms is a complex injury with high morbidity and mortality. One of the most intriguing and controversial part in their management in salvageable patients is the decision to remove the bullet/pellet. A bullet is foreign to the brain and, in principle, should be removed. Surgical options for bullet extraction span from conventional craniotomy, thro...

OBJECTIVE A paucity of corroborative psychological and psychiatric evidence may be inhibiting detection of drug intoxication suicides in the United States. We evaluated the relative importance of suicide notes and psychiatric history in the classification of suicide by drug intoxication versus firearm (gunshot wound) plus hanging/suffocation-the other two major, but overtly violent methods. M...