Sudden death due to asphyxia by esophageal polyp: two case reports and review of asphyxial deaths

Asphyxia, not an uncommon cause of sudden death, may result from numerous etiologies. Foreign-body aspiration and strangulation are 2 extrinsic causes. Airway obstruction may also be caused by laryngeal edema, asthma, infection, or anaphylaxis. Chronic causes of asphyxia include musculoskeletal diseases (eg, muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), neurologic disorders (eg, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis), respiratory disease (eg, emphysema, chronic bronchitis), or tumors. The manner of death in cases of asphyxiation may be natural, accidental, homicide, or suicide. For the death investigator, determining the cause and manner of death can often be quite challenging.We report here 2 cases of an esophageal fibrovascular polyp causing sudden asphyxial death, review of the literature, and discussion of other differential diagnoses in the case of asphyxial death.     

Iatrogenic deaths following treatment for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy: case reports and an approach to the autopsy and death certification

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a disease process which results in a large, heavy heart, with hypertrophy of the interventricular septum (IVS) and left ventricle. HCM accounts for a significant number of cases of sudden cardiac death each year, most infamously in young athletes. The prevalence of the disease has increased over the past several years due to advances in clinical diagnosis and molecular genetic studies. Over this same period, new forms of treatment also have emerged. One such treatment is alcohol septal ablation (ASA). ASA is a procedure performed by a cardiologist, via cardiac catheterization, by injecting pure ethanol into selected arteries which supply the IVS, resulting in a targeted myocardial infarction. This infarct then retracts and forms a scar, decreasing the outflow obstruction and improving the patient's clinical symptoms.The authors report 2 cases of death following ASA treatment of HCM. The first, a 56-year-old male, had his ASA procedure 10 days prior to death. The second decedent, a 76-year-old female, had her procedure only 30 hours before death. These case reports are followed by a discussion about HCM, including pathology, treatments, and treatment-related pathology, before closing with a discussion about death certification in the cases presented and therapy-related deaths in general.     

Childhood panhypopituitarism presenting as child abuse: a case report and review of the literature

Childhood panhypopituitarism may be acquired or congenital. Children with panhypopituitarism can present clinically with diabetes, growth failure, decreased bone density, and morbid obesity. In the forensic setting without the proper history, it can be misdiagnosed as child abuse or neglect. We report a case of a 3-year-old black girl who was admitted to the emergency room with apnea and subsequently died. While at the emergency department, it was discovered that the child had a fractured left hip and was severely growth retarded for age. The coroner wanted to rule out child abuse and/or neglect and requested an autopsy based on the physical findings identified by hospital staff. Significant findings at autopsy included small for age (15th percentile for age), hypoplastic brain/pituitary gland/adrenal gland/thyroid gland, abnormally formed skull with an occipital protuberance, a fractured left hip with decreased bone density, and central adiposity. Subsequent to the autopsy, it was discovered that at 6 weeks of age the child suffered from group B streptococci meningitis that resulted in panhypopituitarism. The panhypopituitarism then resulted in seizure activity, diabetes insipidus, and growth retardation. The authors hope this case report and review of the literature will assist investigators, pathologists, and clinicians in making a distinction between neglect or inflicted injury of child abuse and panhypopituitarism that can present with similar signs and symptoms.     

Fetal death. A 10-year retrospective study

Fetal death has been defined by the World Health Organization as death before complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy. Certain causes of fetal death, including syphilis, Rh isoimmunization, toxemia, and diabetes, have shown significant declines over the past several decades. However, many fetal losses continue to occur from intrauterine infections, lethal malformations, fetal growth retardation, and abruptio placentae. Fetal death with no identifiable specific cause is another consideration when dealing with these cases. Other risk factors can include maternal, sociodemographic, and medical care factors. The authors reviewed all forensic cases referred for autopsy to the Forensic Section of the Medical University of South Carolina, Medical Examiners' Office over the 10-year period 1990-1999. All cases listed as fetal death or stillbirth were included. The 42 cases were analyzed as to fetus' gestational age, sex, race, weight, location of delivery, history of prenatal care, maternal drug use, chromosomal abnormalities, cause and manner of death, and autopsy findings. The black:white ratio was approximately 2:1, and the male:female ratio was virtually 1:1. Most fetuses were older than 20 weeks' gestational age, with one third between 20 and 29 weeks. The majority were externally normal aside from maceration. Only 7.5% had congenital anomalies. Twenty-one of 38 placentas were grossly and microscopically normal. Of cases with toxicologic analysis, 21% were positive for drugs, and 17% were positive for cocaine/benzoylecgonine. The manner of death was classified as natural (28), accident (2), and undetermined (12). Few studies have reported the specific causes of fetal death, and the lack of uniformity in data collection and classification of causes of fetal death has made comparisons difficult. The authors present this retrospective study to better determine the factors leading to fetal demise in the hope of assisting death investigators in this challenging arena.     

Sex role and dating orientation

The assumption that males approach dating from a pronounced psychobiological orientation while females approach it from a psychoaffectional orientation was questioned. The sex role adopted by the individual was considered to be as important a variable as biological sex. Male and female subjects from three age groups, 16–17 years, 19–20 years, and 24–25 years, completed questionnaires designed to measure their sex roles and dating orientations. All groups of males were found to approach the dating relationship from both a psychoaffectional and psychobiological orientation, while all groups of females approached it from a psychoaffectional orientation and showed an increase in psychobiological orientation with increasing age and increasing depth of relationship. Significant differences were also found in dating attitudes between male and female subjects adopting different sex roles. It was concluded that neither masculinity and femininity, nor psychobiological and psychoaffectional attitudes to dating, lie on single continua. Masculine and feminine sex roles as independent dimensions influence psychobiological and psychoaffectional orientations to dating which are in themselves independent dimensions and not ends of a single continuum.Received her B.A. (Hons. 1) at Macquarie University and Dip. Teaching from Syndney Teachers' College. Current research interest is adolescent sexuality.Received M.A. (Hons. I) and Ph.D. at University of Sydney. Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society. Chairman (Sydney Branch) of the Australian Psychological Society. Current research interest is the psychology of adolescence.     

A decade of pediatric homicide: a retrospective study at the Medical University of South Carolina.

More than 3 million children are abused and/or neglected each year in the United States. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of these cases result in homicide by child abuse or child neglect. Causes of death range from blunt force trauma and shaking to asphyxia to immolation. We retrospectively reviewed all pediatric forensic cases referred to the Medical University of South Carolina Forensic Pathology Section over the past 10 years, from January 1986 to December 1995. Of these, we looked only at children < or =5 years of age. The majority (342 cases, 69%) of these deaths were classified as natural, 96 (19%) as accident, and 60 (12%) as homicide. Of the homicides, we examined the cause of death; age, gender, and race of the victim; relationship to the perpetrator; time interval between injury and death; and the initial history given as to the cause of the injury. The cause of death fell into nine categories, the number one category being head trauma. Forty-five percent of the homicides were by head trauma, 12% by abdominal or body trauma, 25% by asphyxia (with half of these due to drowning), 10% by carbon monoxide poisoning or thermal injury, and the remaining 8% involving cases of neglect, stabbing, and poisoning. The majority of the homicide victims were male (67%) and black (67%). Forty-six percent were < or =1 year of age. Approximately 25% of the homicide cases were designated as shaken baby syndrome (SBS). In 97% of the cases, the assailant was known to the victim and was a family relative in 77%. Sixty-three percent of the assailants were female and 45% of the assailants were male; in 12%, the assailants were both parents, and in 1 case, the assailant remains unknown. Of the asphyxia deaths, 87% of the assailants were female. The time interval between injury and death ranged from minutes to hours in most cases to months in cases of repeated abuse and chronic injury and sequelae. The time interval between injury and the onset of symptoms remains unknown in most cases due to inconsistencies in the history and lack of credibility of the caretaker. The most common initial history given was "a fall" (20%). We report our findings of a decade of pediatric homicides to increase awareness of the common scenarios and case histories, demographics of the victims, causes of death, and perpetrators of pediatric homicide.     

Suicide by Cop Among Officer-Involved Shooting Cases

Abstract: The frequency and characteristics of suicide by cop cases (SBC) among a large (n = 707) nonrandom sample of North American officer-involved shootings (OIS) were investigated. “Suicide by cop” is when a subject engages in behavior which poses an apparent risk of serious injury or death, with the intent to precipitate the use of deadly force by law enforcement against the subject. Thirty-six percent of the OIS in this sample were found to be SBC with high interrater agreement (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.93) for category classification. SBC cases were more likely to result in the death or injury of the subjects than regular OIS cases. Most SBC cases were spontaneous, but had clear verbal and behavioral indicators that occurred prior to, and during the event. Findings confirm the trend detected in earlier research that there was a growing incidence of SBC among OIS. SBC individuals had a high likelihood of possessing a weapon (80%), which was a firearm 60% of the time. Half of those with a firearm discharged it at the police during the encounter. Nineteen percent simulated weapon possession to accomplish their suicidal intent. Other findings highlight the histories and commonalities in this high risk group.