Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine, Retzius v. 5, Stockholm 171 65, Sweden.
Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine, Retzius v. 5, Stockholm 171 65, Sweden; Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Retzius v. 3, Stockholm 171 77, Sweden.
Forensic Sci Int. 2024 Nov;364:112251. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2024.112251. Epub 2024 Oct 10.
The lack of drowning-specific pathological findings postmortem complicates medico-legal investigations when bodies are recovered in water. This review provides an in-depth analysis of macroscopic and microscopic findings, as well as biochemical and molecular approaches typically used to diagnose drownings. To ensure that only studies fulfilling established scientific criteria were selected to form conclusions in this review, existing literature was systematically assessed using SPICOT for evaluation of scientific evidence and risk of bias. Analysis of selected studies indicates that several pathophysiological findings following suspected drowning lack scientific evidence, while others are supported by the literature. However, the shortage of suitable controls in drowning research, specifically addressing non-drowned immersed bodies significantly limits investigations on postmortem drowning pathology, and further research is warranted.
当尸体在水中被发现时，缺乏溺死特异性的死后病理发现使得法医学调查变得复杂。本综述深入分析了通常用于诊断溺死的大体和显微镜下发现，以及生化和分子方法。为了确保仅选择符合既定科学标准的研究来形成本综述中的结论，使用 SPICOT 对现有文献进行了系统评估，以评估科学证据和偏倚风险。对选定研究的分析表明，一些疑似溺水后的病理生理发现缺乏科学证据，而其他发现则得到文献的支持。然而，溺水研究中缺乏合适的对照，特别是针对非溺死的浸水尸体，这极大地限制了对死后溺水病理学的研究，因此需要进一步的研究。
