SUDI or “undetermined”: does it matter?

Excerpt

In this special pediatric forensic issue, a range of papers have been selected to demonstrate the diversity of research activities and associated topics that may be encountered in this evolving discipline. A review of neuroimaging in inflicted pediatric head trauma by Frasier et al. provides an up-to-date overview of recent developments, followed by original papers dealing with infant death classification by Kinney et al. and markers for SIDS, and possible associations with viral infection. The latter paper by Niklasson et al. is reviewed in a special Commentary by Krous and Langlois. The issue of youth suicide is dealt with by Boumba et al., and a series of case reports deal with a variety of aspects of unexpected death in the young. A focus of this editorial is, however, on an area that is not often discussed in the literature, and that is the impact that forensic procedures and terminology may have on grieving families. …