Autopsy Findings of Neonatal Tetanus

ABSTRACT

During last 28 years since 1962 we experienced 11 cases of neonatal tetanus that was clinically diagnosed and autopsied at the Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital. All these case were encountered before the year 1980, and was caused by cutting the umbilical cord with unsterilized scissors. All the patients had onset of characteristic symptoms of seizure in first few days and died within a week in most cases. Postmortem findings could be summarized as follows 1) The most impressive pathological finding was found in lungs, which was multifocal intraalveolar hemorrhage. In 3 cases, only fresh hemorrhage and edema were found. 2) Fatty changes of hepatocytes, focal degenerations of cardiac and skeletal muscles, vacuolar change of proximal tubules were found. 3) The changes of other organs seemed to be the secondary changes due to hypoxia.