Murthy Abilash Srinivasa, Das Siddhartha, Thazhath Harichandrakumar Kottyen, Chaudhari Vinod Ashok, Adole Prashant Shankarrao
Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, AIIMS, New Delhi, India.
Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, JIPMER, Puducherry, India.
J Forensic Leg Med. 2019 Feb;62:87-91. doi: 10.1016/j.jflm.2019.01.012. Epub 2019 Jan 23.
Determination of time since death is one of the important objectives of a medicolegal autopsy. The level of electrolytes present in the body fluids acts as a helpful indicator in this regard. Nowadays cold chambers are present in most of the autopsy centres where the body is stored for a variable period of time at a temperature which is different from the environmental temperature. This study was undertaken to know the effect of the cold chamber temperature on the changes in sodium, potassium and chloride levels of vitreous humor and plasma and also to estimate the time since death from the levels of these electrolytes. For this, the study subjects were exposed to the cold chamber temperature (in a range of +2 °C to +4 °C) for a variable duration of time before beginning the autopsy. The results obtained substantiate the fact that the temperature of the cold chamber has a significant effect on the change in vitreous humor potassium level. In subjects exposed to the cold chamber, there was a statistically significant negative correlation between the sodium and chloride levels of vitreous humor with time since death. The R-squared value for the regression equation to predict time since death from vitreous humor sodium level was found to be 0.0916 and was considered a significant predictor of time since death.
确定死亡时间是法医尸检的重要目标之一。体液中电解质的水平在这方面是一个有用的指标。如今，大多数尸检中心都设有冷藏室，尸体在其中以不同于环境温度的温度存放一段可变的时间。本研究旨在了解冷藏室温度对玻璃体液和血浆中钠、钾和氯水平变化的影响，并根据这些电解质的水平估算死亡时间。为此，在开始尸检前，将研究对象在冷藏室温度（+2°C至+4°C范围内）下暴露一段可变的时间。获得的结果证实了冷藏室温度对玻璃体液钾水平变化有显著影响这一事实。在暴露于冷藏室的研究对象中，玻璃体液的钠和氯水平与死亡时间之间存在统计学上显著的负相关。从玻璃体液钠水平预测死亡时间的回归方程的决定系数（R平方值）为0.0916，被认为是死亡时间的一个显著预测指标。
