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BackgroundFormic acid (formate) is the main reason for toxicity and death through methanol poisoning. The simultaneous determination of methanol, ethanol, and formate in the body can help to discover the cause of death and is useful in the diagnosis of acute methanol poisoning. The measurement of formate is not yet available in Iran. With regard to the increasing rate of methanol poisoning and its related mortality in Iran, as well as the main role of formate in methanol poisoning, this study was designed to set up an analytical method for the concurrent determination of ethanol, methanol, and formate.MethodsFollowing the modification of a previously developed gas chromatography method, vitreous and blood samples of 43 postmortem cases with a history of methanol intoxication were collected over a period of 2 years at the Legal Medicine Organization of Mashhad. Thereafter, ethanol, methanol, and formate concentrations were measured by headspace GC/FID. Formate esterification was performed by the methylation of formate with sulfuric acid and methanol. In order to confirm the esterification method for the production of methyl formate, we used gas chromatography with a mass detector (GC/MS) because of its higher sensitivity and accuracy. Furthermore, the correlations between formate and methanol concentrations in blood and vitreous samples, and between formate and methanol were investigated.ResultsA significant relationship was found only between methanol concentrations in blood and vitreous samples (P < 0.03).ConclusionsIn postmortems, with the passage of time since alcohol ingestion, the measurement of only methanol concentration cannot determine the degree of toxicity or the cause of death. Therefore, using the present analytical method and measurement of formic acid, we can estimate the degree of toxicity and cause of death.

This study focuses on the relationship between the incidence of homicide, rage, suicide, and psychiatric hospitalization as violent behaviors with temperature, humidity, and air pressure as specific meteorological variables in the city of Mashhad, in the northeast of Iran. The data were obtained from Iran Meteorological Organization, official registry of Legal Medicine Organization and the local psychiatric hospital, March 2009 to Feb 2010 daily and were analyzed with SPSS-14 using Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and post hoc analysis tests. The rates of rage and psychiatric admission had a significant relationship with the daily mean air temperature, minimum relative humidity, maximum relative humidity, minimum daily pressure, and maximum daily air pressure (p < 0.0001). There was no significant correlation between homicide and suicide rates with any meteorological variables (p > 0.05). We concluded that, the possibility of nonfatal violence and psychiatric hospitalization would increase in hot and arid weather with low air pressure.

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BackgroundMedical errors such as retained foreign bodies (RFB) during surgery are not well studied. To define risk factors associated with this type of error, we performed retrospective study.MethodsWe reviewed medical records for unintentional foreign object remaining in the body during surgery such as gender, age, surgery ward, and incident reports referred to several forensic medicine administrations as well as adverse effects of retained foreign bodies and methods for detection of them over a 3-years period from January 2008 through May 2011.ResultsThirty eight patients were involved in the study to have retained foreign bodies (73% sponges and 27% other instruments including 7 (18.42%) cases of other bandages, 2 cases (5.26%) of scissor and 1 case (2.63%) of forceps). The general surgery ward was most commonly involved (47%) followed by the gynecology surgery ward (34%). Men (58%) were more involved with RFB than women (42%).ConclusionConsidering the most frequent type of retained foreign bodies and also more frequent involved surgery wards besides detection methods for RFB, a mixed of preventing protocols such as regular counting of devices, post-operative X-ray with radiopaque markers and exact evaluation of surgery site should be employed to reduce the occurrence of retained foreign bodies and its complications.