Fucci Nadia, Pascali Vincenzo L, Puccinelli Camilla, Marcheggiani Stefania, Mancini Laura, Marchetti Daniela
Section of Legal Medicine, Institute of Public Health, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo F. Vito, 1, 00168, Rome, Italy.
Environment and Primary Prevention Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161, Rome, Italy.
Forensic Sci Med Pathol. 2015 Dec;11(4):601-5. doi: 10.1007/s12024-015-9708-2. Epub 2015 Sep 30.
In this study, we compare digestive methods used in a forensic context to extract diatoms (37 % hydrochloric acid) to a method recently described in Italian protocols for analysis of benthic diatoms for ecological assessment of surface water (hydrogen peroxide digestion). The two digestive methods were performed using 5 g of brain, lung, liver, kidney, and bone marrow taken from the bodies of 10 drowning victims recovered from three different aquatic environments (ocean, lakes, and rivers). Postmortem examination was performed on all bodies, but aquatic samples were only analyzed in two cases. Tissue digestion was equal by both methods. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) digestion resulted in better diatom preservation, enabling identification of nine genera in all samples examined versus three obtained using hydrochloride digestion. The ideal digestive method to provide evidence for corroboration of a diagnosis of drowning still needs to be established. However, the benthic diatoms protocol can be useful because it is less chemically hazardous to the laboratory operator and supports better diatom preservation for reliable taxonomic analysis.
在本研究中，我们将法医领域用于提取硅藻的消化方法（37%盐酸）与意大利地表水生态评估底栖硅藻分析方案中最近描述的一种方法（过氧化氢消化法）进行了比较。这两种消化方法是使用从三个不同水生环境（海洋、湖泊和河流）中打捞的10名溺水受害者尸体上获取的5克脑、肺、肝、肾和骨髓进行的。对所有尸体进行了尸检，但仅对两例尸体的水生样本进行了分析。两种方法的组织消化效果相同。过氧化氢（H2O2）消化法能更好地保存硅藻，在所检查的所有样本中可鉴定出9个属，而盐酸消化法只能鉴定出3个属。为溺水诊断提供佐证证据的理想消化方法仍有待确定。然而，底栖硅藻分析方案可能会有用，因为它对实验室操作人员的化学危害较小，并且能更好地保存硅藻以便进行可靠的分类分析。
