HIV-infection in forensic autopsy cases

Sudden and unexpected death and violent death of persons with a high risk of acquiring HIV-infections, especially homosexual males and intravenous drug abusers, have to be investigated by forensic autopsies. Therefore every forensic pathologist has to be aware of this infection and should try to make the proper diagnosis. Three typical cases are described: (1) suicide by hanging, (2) homicide by cutting the throat and (3) intravenous heroin overdose. Merely retrospectively it could be cleared up that the deceased were homosexual but did not manifestly suffer from AIDS. The morphological findings in the lymph nodes and the postmortem serological findings are described in detail.     

Insanity plea

Examining 484 consecutive criminal cases in which the NGRI plea was made, it was found: (1) a high degree of interexaminer agreement existed on the issue of the defendant's mental state in a nonadversary examination procedure; and, (2) court verdicts were highly congruent with the opinions expressed by examiners on the issue of insanity.     

Fatal intraoperative hemorrhage during spinal fusion surgery for osteogenesis imperfecta

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is an uncommon inherited systemic disorder of the connective tissues characterized primarily by varying degrees of bony fragility. Consequently, individuals affected by this condition frequently suffer severe skeletal injuries from otherwise innocuous traumatic events. This syndrome has other associated abnormalities, including hydrocephalus and brain stem compression on the basis of cranial developmental defects (platybasia), cardiac and vascular problems, respiratory disease from spinal deformities, vascular fragility, a bleeding disorder caused by an apparent platelet function abnormality, and anesthesia-related hyperpyrexia. A case is presented here of a young girl with advanced OI in whom intraoperative death occurred as a consequence of inadvertent rib fractures, with subsequent uncontrollable hemorrhage. OI may also potentially be mistaken for child abuse by an inexperienced examiner.     

A fatal case of oral ingestion of toluene

A 51-year-old male ingested orally a large quantity of toluene and died about 30 min later. The presence of toluene in body fluids and tissues was confirmed by gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Tissue distribution of toluene showed that the liver detected the highest content of toluene (433.5 micrograms/g), except for the stomach contents, followed by pancreas (88.2 micrograms/g), brain (85.3 micrograms/g), heart (62.6 micrograms/g), blood (27.6 micrograms/g), fat (12.2 micrograms/g) and finally cerebrospinal fluid (11.1 micrograms/g).     

The mechanism and nature of the injuries when a human body falls on a flight of stairs

The results of experimental studies on modelling of mechanism of lesion formation in falling of human body at the flight of stairs both spontaneously and with given acceleration are presented. Mathematical processing of material with calculation of diagnostical factors revealed the possibility of differentiation between spontaneous fall and fall with given acceleration at different areas of the flight of stairs.