RESUMO
Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is one of the most common causes of death worldwide with a higher frequency especially in the young. Therefore, SCD is represented frequently in forensic autopsy practice, whereupon pathological findings in the heart can explain acute death. These pathological changes may not only include myocardial infarction, coronary thrombosis, or all forms of myocarditis/endocarditis but also rare diseases such as hereditary structural or arrythmogenic anomalies, lesions of the cardiac conduction system, or primary cardiac tumours.
Assuntos
Morte Súbita Cardíaca/epidemiologia , Morte Súbita Cardíaca/etiologia , Morte Súbita Cardíaca/patologia , Medicina Legal , Autopsia/métodos , Doença das Coronárias/complicações , Doença das Coronárias/patologia , Humanos , Técnicas de Diagnóstico Molecular/métodos , Infarto do Miocárdio/complicações , Infarto do Miocárdio/patologia , Miocardite/complicações , Miocardite/patologiaRESUMO
Hanging can be suicidal, accidental, or homicidal, and these backgrounds must be discriminated by police and forensic pathologists. We herein report a case involving a 33-year-old man who was found dead on the floor behind the entrance door of an apartment house. The man's brother declared that he had found him hanging in the gap between the stairs on the top floor. When his brother tried to cut him down, the victim fell three floors down through the gap between the stairs. Autopsy was performed to confirm suicidal hanging and a postmortem fall into the narrow gap. In this case, however, a homicide was suspected, and the version of events told by the victim's brother was initially doubted. Homicidal hanging may be uncommon, but intensive scene investigation and thorough autopsy are necessary in hanging cases to rule out homicide.
