Abstract

Determination of time since death is one of the most difficult and crucial issue in forensic medicine. Apart from body cooling, which is commonly used in the early postmortem interval (PMI), supravital reactions are the most interesting postmortem changes for time of death estimation. Nasal ciliary motility has been occasionally observed in postmortem period although no studies have focused on this phenomenon for forensic purposes. We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic usefulness of ciliary motility as a potential tool in estimating the time of death. Specimens of ciliated epithelium from 100 consecutive cadavers were obtained by scraping the nasal mucosa at three different postmortem intervals. The samples were then smeared on a slide, and an in vitro evaluation of ciliary movement was analyzed by phase-contrast microscopy. A postmortem nasal ciliary motility was observed, and a statistically significant relationship between decreasing ciliary movements and increasing postmortem interval was detected even in presence of putrefactive changes of nasal ultrastructure integrity. Some peculiar causes of death seem to influence ciliary motility in the early PMI, while no significant correlations with sex or age were observed. According to the results of this study, postmortem evaluation of nasal ciliary motility may be a bona fide and a feasible option for estimating the time of death.

Autore Pugliese

• Fiorella Maria Luisa

Tutti gli autori

• FIORELLA M.L.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Non Disponibile

Anno di pubblicazione

2012

ISSN

0937-9827

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Scopus

11

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

Non Disponibile

Settori ERC

Non Disponibile

Codici ASJC

Non Disponibile