411040

Postmortem Levels of Human Vitreous Humor Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium and Glucose in Different Causes of Death.

Article

Last updated: 11 May 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

Forensic Medicine

Abstract

Vitreous humor (VH) is a highly valuable sterile accessible sample in postmortem chemistry. Relatively few studies concerned the VH postmortem analysis in differentiating between causes of death. The current prospective cross-sectional study aimed at estimating VH postmortem levels of Sodium (Na), Potassium (K), Magnesium (Mg) and Glucose as differentiating variables between (traumatic, pathological and toxicological) causes of death. In the current work, VH samples were obtained from adult autopsied cases (n= 70) with postmortem interval less than 24 hours and after exclusion of ocular diseases or trauma. The traumatic group had significantly higher VH levels of (Na, K and Mg), in line with significantly lower VH glucose compared to Pathological group. The VH glucose levels were significantly higher in toxicological group compared to traumatic group. Toxicological group had significantly higher VH Na and VH Mg levels as well as significant lower VH glucose levels compared to pathological group. The VH glucose achieved the highest accuracy (84.6 %) in the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis for differentiating between traumatic and pathological causes of deaths; followed by VHK, (82.6 %). Also, the VH glucose had the highest accuracy (76.2 %) in discriminating pathological from toxicological deaths followed by VH Na (70.8 %). Moreover, VH glucose achieved accuracy of (74.2 %) in differentiating between Traumatic and Toxicological deaths. To conclude, postmortem VH electrolytes and glucose levels showed variable patterns in different death causes. Hence, VH analysis could be used as adjuvant tool in suspecting cause of death; particularly the VH glucose level.

DOI

10.21608/mjfmct.2025.350072.1093

Keywords

Postmortem chemistry, vitreous, electrolytes, glucose, ROC analysis

Authors

First Name

Amr

Last Name

Hassan

MiddleName

Mohammed

Affiliation

Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University

Email

amrohassan777@gmail.com

City

Mansoura

Orcid

-

First Name

Abdel Aziz

Last Name

Ghanem

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University

Email

ghanem7000@yahoo.com

City

Mansoura

Orcid

-

First Name

Hend

Last Name

Abo El-Atta

MiddleName

H.M

Affiliation

Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Egypt

Email

dr_hendatta@hotmail.com

City

Mansoura

Orcid

0000-0001-9777-1749

First Name

Ahmed

Last Name

Hasan

MiddleName

S.

Affiliation

Clinical Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine Mansoura University

Email

ahmedshaki@mans.edu.eg

City

Mansoura

Orcid

-

First Name

Heba Allah

Last Name

Abd El Rahman

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University

Email

hebatoxo@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

0000-0002-1566-5887

Volume

33

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

51129

Issue Date

2025-07-01

Receive Date

2025-01-05

Publish Date

2025-07-01

Page Start

31

Page End

49

Print ISSN

1110-5437

Online ISSN

2682-3217

Link

https://mjfmct.journals.ekb.eg/article_411040.html

Detail API

http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=411040

Order

411,040

Type

Original Article

Type Code

966

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Mansoura Journal of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology

Publication Link

https://mjfmct.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Postmortem Levels of Human Vitreous Humor Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium and Glucose in Different Causes of Death.

Details

Type

Article

Created At

11 May 2025