Title

Postmortem Study of Sudden Death with Special Reference to Cardiovascular Causes.

Authors

Mahesh Jambure, Ashlesha Jambure, Radhey Khetre, Prasad Jaybhaye

Abstract

Introduction: The present study is carried out on cases died due to sudden natural causes which were brought for medico-legal autopsy to our institute. The study was aimed at analyzing the medico-legal and epidemiological aspects in cases of sudden natural deaths with special reference to cardiac causes. Material & methods: Total 2088 autopsies were conducted, out of which, 221 cases (10.58%) were of sudden natural death. Various factors like age, sex, time of incident, survival period, occupation, marital status, month wise distribution, seasonal variations, locality, religion, nourishment, habits, injuries, system wise affection, disease and sex wise distribution, cases of MI, distribution of coronary artery block, location of coronary artery block, cut section of ventricular wall, multisystem involvement to the body were studied. Results: Amongst these 221 cases, 195 cases (88.23%) were male and 26 (11.76%) were female. The male to female ratio was 7.5:1. It was observed that cardiovascular system was the most vulnerable to sudden death contributing to 114 (51.59%) deaths. Conclusion: Among cardiovascular causes, maximum deaths (96.49%) were due to coronary artery disease followed by mitral stenosis 2 cases, cardiac tamponade and Ventricular heart disease 1 case each. Most commonly affected age group was 41-50.

Keywords

Autopsy, Sudden cardiac death, Sudden death.