Clinical Cases in Forensic Medicine: From Clinical Findings to Forensic Opinion

Dear Colleagues,

Forensic medicine occupies a unique intersection between clinical practice and the legal system, where the careful documentation, interpretation and communication of medical findings can carry decisive weight in judicial, administrative or investigative proceedings. Despite the increasing complexity of forensic assessments—spanning trauma analysis, toxicology, sexual violence, sudden death, medical malpractice and age estimation—the literature on how individual clinical cases translate into actionable forensic opinions remains fragmented.

Clinical case reports constitute one of the most direct tools for bridging this gap. They offer concrete, real-world illustrations of how physical examination findings, laboratory data, imaging and histopathological results are synthesized to support—or challenge—a forensic conclusion. In forensic medicine, unlike many clinical specialties, the “patient” is often also the subject of legal scrutiny, making methodological transparency, evidentiary rigor and the clear communication of uncertainty indispensable.

This Special Issue invites original case reports, case series and short communications that demonstrate the reasoning pathway from observed clinical or pathological findings to a reasoned forensic opinion. The overarching goal is to build a curated, open-access repository of instructive forensic cases that accomplish the following:

• Illuminate methodological best practices in forensic assessment and documentation;
• Highlight diagnostic challenges encountered at the clinical–forensic interface;
• Facilitate knowledge transfer between clinicians, forensic specialists and legal professionals;
• Promote standardization of forensic reporting across jurisdictions and institutional settings.

Authors are encouraged to submit cases addressing, but not limited to, the following areas:

• Forensic traumatology: Interpretation of injury patterns, wound morphology, blunt/sharp/firearm trauma and the distinction between ante-mortem, peri-mortem and post-mortem lesions
• Sexual assault and intimate partner violence: Clinical documentation, biological evidence collection and medico-legal evaluation
• Forensic toxicology in clinical settings: Acute intoxications, drug-facilitated crimes and the forensic interpretation of toxicological findings
• Sudden and unexpected death: Clinico-pathological correlations in cases reaching forensic autopsy
• Medical malpractice and professional liability: Cases in which clinical records and findings support or exclude professional negligence
• Forensic pediatrics and child abuse: Recognition and documentation of non-accidental injuries
• Forensic age estimation: Clinical and radiological approaches in living individuals
• Medico-legal assessment of disability and injury severity: Quantification of physical and psychological harm for legal purposes
• Asphyxia, strangulation and mechanical suffocation: Clinical recognition and forensic documentation
• Emerging scenarios: Forensic dimensions of emerging clinical issues (e.g., drug misuse trends, novel psychoactive substances, climate-related trauma)

Dr. Beatrice Defraia
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Reports is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.