Assessment of Sudden Natural Deaths in Medico-Legal Autopsies at Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Background and Aim: Sudden natural death that occurred apparently to a healthy individual sometimescreates suspicions of foul play, thus subjected to medicolegal (ML) examinations. The study aims to assess thesociodemographic profile of the sudden natural death cases brought for medicolegal autopsy and identify thecommonest accountable cause of sudden natural death.Material and Methods: The study was conducted in the Department of Forensic Medicine, at tertiary care teachinghospital, India for the duration of 1 year. During the study period total of 784 cases were brought for medicolegalautopsies to mortuary, out of which 50 cases were found to be sudden natural death constituting an overall burdenof 6.37%. All the cases of autopsy having the opinion of natural death as a cause of death and cases brought deadin casualty without evidence of unnatural cause were included. The distribution of the cases concerning varioussociodemographic variables was presented as frequencies and percentages.Results: Male predominance was observed among the sudden death cases as out of 50 cases, 40 cases (80%) weremale, and 10 cases were female with a sex ratio of 4:1. Most of the cases were reported from the adult age groupand the commonly involved age group was 31 to 40 years. Among the causes of sudden death, the most involvedorgan system was the cardiovascular system (44%), followed by the gastrointestinal system (22%), respiratorysystem (18%), central nervous system (14%) and genitourinary system (2%).Conclusion: Cardiac causes are the most common cause of sudden natural death among the adult population inthe study site. Increased frequency of sudden deaths among urban, married and adult male populations might bedue to sedentary lifestyles in urban areas and increased stress among married individuals due to workload andfamily responsibilities, indicating a physical and mental disequilibrium in modern times resulting in this type ofunexpected deaths.