Serum enzymes changes after death & its correlation with time since death.

Estimation of time since death is one of the primary objectives of an autopsy. Forensic Scientists and researchers have been persevering hard to find out methods of accurate determination of postmortem interval since long. However, the concept of “Postmortem Clocking” so far seems to be a distant dream only. The favorite biological fluids, to study postmortem biochemical changes, have been those which withstand putrefactive changes for longer duration, like vitreous humor, cerebrospinal fluid, pericardial fluid etc. In blood, markers like electrolytes, urea, creatinine, glucose etc have been more commonly studied. Enthusiastic studies have been undertaken by various researchers to find out reasonably reliable methods of estimating postmortem interval by studying serial quantitative changes in serum levels of various enzymes and to extrapolate the data obtained therefore in terms of duration of death. However, the accuracy of such an opinion remains big area of concern even today, as the range of duration is mostly too wide to be practically useful.

Ethics of tissue and stem cell trasplantation

Tissue and cell transplantation are regarded as a popular procedure in clinical sciences, prospecting a new horizon for several incurable diseases. Along with its usefulness, many ethical concerns accompany this development. The ethical issue of organ transplant is unique to the source used which includes: living related, living unrelated, cadaveric, and xenotransplant. Obtaining organs has a separate set of ethical concerns which are discussed under two headings, namely salvage and donation. Then there is the issue of organ marketing and the ethical, social, and economical issues it encompasses. All these are active areas of debate, and we have touched upon them by turn. This century has brought a new aspect of transplantation into the light, stem cell transplantation. Here we present some work done recently on mesenchymal stem cells and their outcome. These cells are now being employed in the therapy of some incurable ailments. It seems this kind of transplantation, although possessing its own range of issues, could prove to be the way of the future