title: Medico-legal investigation of chicken fat clot in forensic cases: immunohistochemical and retrospective studies.
abstract: Chicken fat clot (CFC), a fibrin-like substance, is sometimes found in the heart and large blood vessels in some autopsy cases. Reports of detailed histological findings of CFC are scant. We therefore examined CFC histologically in 53 autopsy cases and its correlation with ante-mortem or post-mortem evidence. We found three microscopic patterns of CFC: (1) wavelike fibrin fibers (WFF), (2) short fibrin fibers (SFF), and (3) short fibrin fibers mixed with wavelike fibrin fibers (SFF+WFF). WFF were found in the cases that survived less than 3 h after poisoning, burns, asphyxia, intracerebral hemorrhage, etc. SFF were found in the cases that survived more than 1 day after malignant neoplasms and acute or chronic inflammatory diseases, etc. SFF+WFF were found in the cases that died of inflammatory diseases, chronic heart failure, hemorrhagic shock, drowning, etc. About two-thirds of the SFF+WFF cases survived more than 1 day, with the rest surviving less than that. Our study confirmed three CFC patterns and their relation with survival interval. Therefore, these findings can be used as an index of the survival interval of a few acute and most chronic medico-legal death cases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kagawa University, 1750-1, Ikenobe, Miki, Kita, Kagawa 761-0793, Japan. uekita@med.kagawa-j.ac.jp
authors.forename: Ikuo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Uekita
authors.forename: Iwao
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ijiri
authors.forename: Yasushi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nagasaki
authors.forename: Reiji
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Haba
authors.forename: Yasunobu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Funamoto
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsunaga
authors.forename: Mostofa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jamal
authors.forename: Weihuan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Mitsuru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kumihashi
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ameno
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005337:Fibrin / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism; D012140:Respiratory Tract Diseases / Q000378:metabolism; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis; D013927:Thrombosis / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D005337:Fibrin