Intensive Care Services, Eastern Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; School of Public Health and Prevention Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Intensive Care Services, Eastern Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Forensic Sci Int. 2021 Oct;327:110960. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2021.110960. Epub 2021 Aug 20.
To evaluate the potential use of cutaneous facial temperature change as measured by an infrared camera as a marker of postmortem interval (PMI) in the minutes immediately following death.
This was a prospective, observational pilot study using a convenience sample of all deaths which occurred in a room in an Intensive Care Unit equipped with a ceiling mounted thermal camera. Cutaneous temperature measurements were taken from 60 min antemortem to as long as possible postmortem.
A total of 134 separate measurements was taken from 5 patients, with 65 occurring antemortem, and 69 occurring post-mortem. The longest recorded post-mortem time was 130 min. A Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA testing the hypothesis that there was a difference in facial temperature at each of the different timepoints showed significance (p = 0.029). Post-Hoc comparisons were then performed to compare median temperature values at each timeframe to the baseline value. Compared to baseline, there was a significant difference in facial temperature at 30, 60, and 90 min (p = 0.007, p = 0.01, p = 0.016) (Table 2).
There is a statistically significant cutaneous facial temperature change in patients immediately following death as measured by a thermal camera. There is potential for infrared thermography to identify changes immediately before and after death in environments where traditional temperature measurement cannot be accomplished. More work needs to be done to confirm whether a precise postmortem interval (PMI) could be derived from these values.
评估通过红外摄像机测量的皮肤面部温度变化在死亡后即刻作为死后时间（PMI）的标志物的潜在用途。
这是一项使用便利样本的前瞻性观察性试点研究，所有死亡均发生在配备天花板安装式热摄像机的重症监护病房的一个房间中。从死亡前 60 分钟开始进行皮肤温度测量，并尽可能长时间地进行测量。
对 5 名患者进行了总共 134 次单独的测量，其中 65 次发生在死亡前，69 次发生在死后。记录的最长死后时间为 130 分钟。Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA 检验假设在不同时间点面部温度存在差异，结果具有统计学意义（p=0.029）。然后进行事后比较，以比较每个时间框架的中位数温度值与基线值。与基线相比，30、60 和 90 分钟时的面部温度有显著差异（p=0.007、p=0.01、p=0.016）（表 2）。
通过热摄像机测量，患者在死亡后立即出现皮肤面部温度的显著变化。在传统温度测量无法完成的环境中，红外热成像有可能识别死亡前后的变化。需要进一步研究以确认是否可以从这些值中得出准确的死后时间（PMI）。
