When it comes to determining the identity of an unknown deceased person, it is important to identify specific, individual characteristics that can be used to draw further conclusions. In this case, it was a special implant that had been inserted into the deceased person's skull - and ultimately proved to be the key to solving the case.
When Prof Dr Jan Dreßler, Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Leipzig University Hospital and his colleagues, senior physicians Dr Carsten Babian and Dr Christian König, from the Leipzig Public Prosecutor's Office to help establish the identity of an unknown deceased person, it made sense for them to utilise their existing good contacts with the Clinic and Polyclinic for Neurosurgery at the UKL, given the specific nature of this particular case. The idea was that patient-specific fabrications such as the cranial implant must be documented by the manufacturer in accordance with the Medical Devices Ordinance and can therefore be clearly assigned to a specific person at a later date.
There has been close collaboration and a mutual exchange between the two institutions for a long time. For example, the neurosurgery experts use the forensic medicine computer tomography system for their research tasks. "In the case of identifying the patient-specific cranial implant, we were pleased that we were able to support our colleagues here with our expertise in the field of 3D scanning and 3D printing," says PD Dr Ronny Grunert, one of the heads of the 3D printing research laboratory LEGEND at the Department of Neurosurgery alongside Clinic Director Prof Dirk Winkler. The research focus of LEGEND (LEipzig NeurosurGical 3D REsearch aNd Development Center) is on 3D applications for personalised surgery. This includes the development of state-of-the-art augmented/mixed reality applications for planning and intraoperative navigation of complex operations. The second focus of the laboratory is the development and production of patient-specific instruments and implants using various 3D printing technologies.
Equipped with state-of-the-art technical equipment for 3D printing and 3D scanning and the associated expertise, Katharina Scheidt, research assistant at the Department of Neurosurgery at the UKL, took up the challenge. And indeed, it turned out that the implant was most likely made of the plastic polyetheretherketone - PEEK for short - and had been produced on a 3D printer. PEEK implants are used, among other things, to reconstruct bone defects in the facial skull, for example after accidents or after the removal of tumours. As implants made from this material are not manufactured at the UKL itself, the 3D expert set out to find the potential manufacturer. And lo and behold: after just one day, Katharina Scheidt had already found what she was looking for - at 3di GmbH, a manufacturer of patient-specific implants from Jena. "The typical two-group pattern of perforations on the implant was striking," said the research assistant, describing her "search success". The 3D scanner was then used. "With its help, we created a virtual 3D model of the implant in the research laboratory, from which we created an OBJ file - a widely used format for 3D models - and sent it to the Institute of Forensic Medicine."
Surgeon Dr Babian immediately forwarded this file to 3di GmbH, asking whether the medical technology provider could carry out a comparison with the implants in its database. This search promptly produced a hit. As patient-specific implants are billed via health insurance, it was then easy to find out the name of the person who had been fitted with them. In the end, the company, which incidentally emerged 25 years ago from a research project at Jena University Hospital and Friedrich Schiller University, was able to inform the Leipzig public prosecutor's office of the identity of the unknown corpse. Thanks to state-of-the-art technical equipment and close interdisciplinary collaboration within Leipzig University Medicine, the case was solved!
"For us, it was an exciting change from our daily tasks," summarises Dr Grunert, pointing out another interesting side aspect: "Two years ago, the well-known criminal biologist and author Dr Mark Benecke visited us. At the time, we discussed the possibility of using 3D scans to determine the identity of unknown victims of crime. He found this idea very interesting. I find it remarkable that this case has now actually materialised."
Contact for case-related enquiries:
Leipzig Public Prosecutor's Office
Public Prosecutor Vanessa Fink
0341 2136-703
vanessa.fink@stal.justiz.sachsen.de
Press release of the "Leipzig University Hospital" of 21 October 2025