ABSTRACT:Drowning is a common cause of death. There are several assays to examine drowning bodies, but none of them becomes widely recognized. Virtopsy is considered to be a new imaging technology in post-mortem studies. Such non-invasive or minimally invasive method is utilized to examine corpses out of drowning, with the traditional autopsist’s knife or scissors replaced by surface scanning, X-ray, magnetic resonance. Accordingly, some researchers develop interests in the virtual autopsy of bodies from drowning, mainly placing their focuses in the following systems of the respiratory, nervous, digestive, and parts of the cardiovascular. Compared with the others, the research in respiratory system is more comprehensive and accurate. Unfortunately, the theory is yet to advance, because there are only a few researchers specializing in this ifeld, and the studies are somehow limited. This paper summarizes the virtopsy-based studies in the diagnosis of drowning and evaluates this new technology in forensic practice, with the purpose to provide a reference for the further study.%溺死是一种较为常见的死亡原因，关于溺死的鉴定方法数量较多，但是目前仍未有可以作为认定溺死的通用方法。虚拟解剖是一项新兴的法医学技术，它运用表面扫描、X射线、磁共振等无创或微创的方法取代传统尸检的解剖刀或剪刀，对尸体进行检验。近年来，部分研究者将视线转到了利用虚拟解剖技术研究溺死上，目前为止，研究主要集中在呼吸系统、神经系统、消化系统，部分涉及心血管系统，其中关于呼吸系统的研究较其他系统更为全面，所获结论特异性较高。但是由于研究者较少，研究范围的局限，目前所获结论的实践性仍较低，本文通过总结目前的研究成果及该技术的应用价值，期望能够为以后的研究提供参考，为将来将虚拟解剖这一新的方式应用于溺死的检验实践打下基础。
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