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1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

Histological study on postmortem changes and the influence of the cause of death in various organs.

Research Project

Project/Area Number 07670506
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeSingle-year Grants
Section一般
Research Field Legal medicine
Research InstitutionNippon Medical School

Principal Investigator

TOMITA Yukari  Nippon Medical School, Medical department, Assistant, 医学部, 助手 (20159049)

Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) SATO Shigeru  Nippon Medical School, Medical department, Assistant, 医学部, 助手 (10125073)
NIHIRA Makoto  Nippon Medical School, Medical department, Assistant Professor, 医学部, 助教授 (40089636)
OHNO Youkichi  Nippon Medical School, Medical department, Professor, 医学部, 助教授 (70152220)
Project Period (FY) 1995 – 1997
Keywordspostmortem changes / histological study / cervical dislocation / excessive bleeding / clumping of chromatin / swelling and degeneration of mitochondria / estimation of postmortem interval / transmission electron microscopy
Research Abstract

Male Wistar rats were killed by cervical dislocation or exsanguination and left at room temperature up to twenty-four hours after death. After given postmortem interval, kidney, pancreas, liver, heart and skeletal muscle were embedded by paraffin or epoxy resin and examined by light microscopy. For ultrastructural examination, epoxy embedded block was examined by transmission electron microscopy.
1. From the light microscopic study in cervical dislocation group, the specimen obtained from epoxy block reflects the postmortem interval by the appearance of the clumping of chromatin in nucleus and the vacuolization in cytoplasm. In addition, the time-courses of postmortem changes were characteristic in each organ up to twenty-four hours after death. On the other hand, the specimen from paraffin block showed no significant histological differences. These phenomena estimate the proceeding of postmortem changes during the fixation period in paraffin embedding method.
2. From the ultrastructural … More examination of the cervical dislocation group and the exsanguination group, the postmortem changes were delayd in exsanguination group. In pancreatic acinar cell, the mitochondrial amorphous dense deposits were hardly seen at three hours after death and were slightly seen at ten hours after death by exsanguination, while the deposits were seen at one hour after death and the mitochondria showed amorphism at ten hours after death by cervical dislocation. The myocardium showed relaxation at three hours after death, contraction at ten hours after death, and relaxation again at fifteen hours after death by cervical dislocation, while relaxation and contraction were seen simultaneously at ten hours after death by exsanguination.These phenomena might be caused by the rapid falling of rectal temperature in exsanguination group.
3. From the ultrastructural observation of cervical dislocation group, clumping of chromatin, amorphous dense deposits of mitochondria are useful for morphological assessment for the estimation of postmortem interval. Less

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Published: 1999-03-16  

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