Skin injuries in forensic histopathology: a descriptive study

Area of Science:

• Forensic Medicine
• Pathology
• Toxicology

Background:

• Histopathology is crucial in forensic medicine, yet few studies correlate skin wound analysis with survival time or medicolegal data.
• Understanding the timeline of skin injuries is vital for accurate forensic investigations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate the utility of skin wound histopathology in daily forensic practice.
• To assess the correlation between histopathological findings and clinical/police investigation data.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective, descriptive study of 198 forensic pathology cases with 554 skin samples.
• Analysis of skin wounds for hemorrhage and inflammation to estimate time of injury.
• Correlation of histopathological dating with police-estimated survival time and other case parameters.

Main Results:

• 2% of lesions were post-mortem, 55% perimortem/undetermined. Estimated time intervals varied from minutes to weeks.
• Histopathological dating correlated significantly with wound location, injury type, hypothermia, toxicology, hepatic lesions, and survival time (p < 0.001).
• Survival time estimation was possible in nearly half of cases, aligning with police data.

Conclusions:

• Histopathological analysis of skin wounds is valuable in forensic practice for estimating survival time and correlating with other case data.
• While useful, the accuracy of histopathological dating is limited.
• Further research, particularly using immunohistochemistry, is needed to enhance diagnostic markers for wound age determination.