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Progressive gas formation in a deceased person during mortuary storage demonstrated on computed tomography

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Abstract

We report the case of an 82-year-old woman with a past history of diabetes mellitus who died following blunt head injury sustained in a fall resulting in an acute subdural hematoma. Serial postmortem CT scans of the chest and abdomen performed over a 3-day period demonstrated progressive intra-hepatic and intra-cardiac gas formation whilst the deceased was stored in a standard mortuary refrigerator at a nominated temperature of 4°C. Measured mortuary refrigerator temperatures over a 7 day period showed statistically significant day to day variability in temperatures above 4°C as well as variations in temperature depending on location within the refrigerator space. In the absence of other known factors associated with such gas formation, putrefaction seems the likely cause despite a lack of obvious external features. This phenomenon must therefore be taken into account when interpreting the presence of visceral gas on postmortem CT and relating such gas to the cause of death.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge and thank the following people for their contributions and support. Miss Emily Orchard, the mortuary technician who performed the computed tomography scanning, Dr Melanie Archer, the entomologist at the institute who coordinated and interpreted the temperatures recorded in the mortuary refrigerator and the rest of the mortuary staff who made it possible for us to record the temperatures within the refrigerator.

Conflict of interest

All authors are employees or postgraduate fellows of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Level 20, S&T Tower 1, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

    Mansharan Kaur Chainchel Singh

  2. Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University, Southbank, VIC, 3006, Australia

    Mansharan Kaur Chainchel Singh, Christopher O’Donnell & Noel William Woodford

Authors
  1. Mansharan Kaur Chainchel Singh
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  2. Christopher O’Donnell
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  3. Noel William Woodford
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Correspondence to Mansharan Kaur Chainchel Singh.

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Singh, M.K.C., O’Donnell, C. & Woodford, N.W. Progressive gas formation in a deceased person during mortuary storage demonstrated on computed tomography. Forensic Sci Med Pathol 5, 236–242 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-009-9103-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-009-9103-y

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