Correlation of Time Since Death with Morphological Changes in Neutrophils Mighani Rahul1,*, Garg Anil2, Singh Kulwant3, Sharma Gaurav4, Kumar Yogesh5, Sharma Balraj6 1PG Resident, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, B.P.S. Government Medical College for Women, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Gohana Road, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana-131305, India 2Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, B.P.S. Government Medical College for Women, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Gohana Road, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana-131305, India 3Professor, Department of Pathology, B.P.S. Government Medical College for Women, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Gohana Road, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana-131305, India 4Professor & Head, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, B.P.S. Government Medical College for Women, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Gohana Road, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana-131305, India 5Associate Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, B.P.S. Government Medical College for Women, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Gohana Road, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana-131305, India 6Demonstrator, N.C. Medical CollegeIsrana Panipat, Panipat-Rohtak Road, VPO Israna, Panipat-132107, Haryana, India *Corresponding author email id: rahulmighani1986@gmail.com
Online Published on 16 June, 2023. Abstract Background Death is the end of dying. It is a process rather than an event except in the exceptionally rare situations where death may be almost instantaneous [1]. Materials & Methods In this study morphological changes in neutrophils were studied in autopsy cases. Blood samples from 57 different autopsy cases were taken and smears were prepared after staining them with Leishman stain. The samples were examined using light microsc ope under 40X and 100X magnification. Results Among 57 cases no degenerative changes were seen in 8. Mild degenerative changes were seen in among 23, Moderate among 12 and Marked among 14 cases. Among 57 cases while observing degenerative changes in neutrophils nuclear changes were seen in 47 cases in form of pyknosis among them 40 reached to level of nuclear fragmentation. Cytoplasmic changes were seen in form of cytoplasmic vacuolation seen in 49 cases. Among them loss of cytoplasm was seen in 36 and cytoplasmic degeneration seen in 26. There was only 8 case in which no change was seen. No changes were seen upto 6 hrs. Conclusion The present study proves that changes in the morphology of neutrophils can be helpful as supplementary procedure for estimating time since death. Top Keywords Morphological changes, White blood cells, Lysis, Time since death. Top |