Profile of autopsy cases at New Civil Hospital, Surat: a retrospective study

Abstract

in our day-today life. While some are able to take up the pressures of life, others are not able to face it; hence, they end up their lives, making lives miserable for the family members. This study aims to set up a profile of deaths owing to natural or unnatural causes, so that we can direct rigorous efforts to curb their incidence. India is a developing country with increasing industrialization and urbanization. Surat is regarded as having a large industrial zone. The Surat city is a major silk and cotton textile production center. With the outbursting population, increased levels of unemployment, high income disparities, substance abuse, increased vehicular traffic density, meager infrastructure facilities, and various types of morbidities, the number of medicolegal cases is on the increase in number. This is allegedly important for the people following the law and order; those who attend them; and those who are concerned with the etiology, nature of cause, and their documentation. Background: The profiling of medicolegal cases is necessary in order to prevent the preventable casualties in future and to study the genuine crime rate in the area. Nowadays, road traffic accidents cause most of the casualties, which lead to many deaths. Objective: To set up a profile of deaths owing to natural or unnatural causes, so that we can direct rigorous efforts to curb their incidence. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively studied the death cases brought for medicolegal postmortem examination at the Mortuary, Government Medical College, Surat, Gujarat, India, in the year 2012. During this period, a total of 2,166 autopsy cases were conducted. Result: Of the total 2,166 cases, maximum numbers of autopsy cases [213 (9.83%)] were conducted in October. Male cases predominated over the female cases, which were 1,663 (76.77%). The maximum numbers of cases [615 (28.39%)] were in the age group of 21-30 years. Injury-related deaths were more in number [989 (45.66%)] of the total cases. Natural deaths accounted for 469 (21.65%) cases, violent asphyxial deaths were 239 (11.03%) cases, and thermal injury accounted for 272 (12.56%) cases, followed by the poisoning [183 (8.45%)] cases. Conclusion: It is observed that the most common cause of death is road traffic accident, probably owing to higher frequency of transportation. The most common cause of death was vehicular accidents involving head injury.

Profile of Medicolegal Autopsy Cases at Tertiary Care Centre in Belagavi, Karnataka. A One Year Retrospective Study

“…Rural residents were 67.9% and only 32.1% were from Urban. This finding is contradicting to results of other studies done by Radhakrishna KV [13] et al and Patel JB [14] et al in which Urban residents were in majority.This difference is due to our centre serves more rural population.…”

“…According to month wise distribution of cases, findings of our study showed more number of cases between April to June. Similar findings are seen in studies by Patel et al [14] and Awdesh et al [15] .…”

Profile and pattern of post-mortem cases in mortuary of district hospital (associated with government medical college, Vidisha). — A cross-sectional study

“…According to month wise distribution of cases, findings of our study showed more number of cases between April to July (45.75%). Similar findings are seen in studies by Patel et al 11 and Awdesh et al 9…”

Trend of Medicolegal Manner of Deaths in Ghana: A Forensic Autopsy-Based Study

“…The preferred method of committing suicide in China was by hanging whilst that of India was mostly via thermal burns. [6,13] The forensic autopsy and the police reports showed road traffic accident as the ultimate manner of death of all medicolegal autopsies in present study. This was followed cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.…”