This study is considered the first scientific research on the use of bone scintigraphy as a diagnostic method in the medical evaluation process of people subjected to torture.
Since December 1989 till the end of 1992, we examined 221 people claiming to have been tortured in detention. Sixty-two cases could be sufficiently documented. All of them declared that they had been beaten, 54 of them being severely (87.1%). Falanga torture, beating the soles of the feet with a stick was applied to 48 (77.42%) people. Other methods of torture such as suspending on a hanger, applying electric shocks, sexual abuse, and execution, etc. were also reported by diverse numbers of patients. Every patient was examined with bone scan at least once. There were 16 patients with positive scans (61.54%) among the “acute” cases, 17 patients among the “chronic” (51.52%) and all the 3 in the “subacute” group were positive, 36 positives in total (58.06%). Since the “chronic” cases had their first bone scans about 10.5 years after torture, positive scan findings in 17 (51.5%) of those 33 persons may be noteworthy. This strong relation and long-lasting objective clues may become le-gally acceptable. Our first impression of CAT scan is also encouraging.
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