title: Thymus and adrenal glands in elder abuse.
abstract: Endogenous glucocorticoid-induced thymic involution is generally considered to be an important finding for determining child abuse. The present study investigated the weight of the thymus and the adrenal glands in elder abuse cases to identify a potential marker for elder abuse. There was no significant difference in the thymus and the adrenal weight between elder abuse and control cases. However, the elder abuse cases in which the duration of abuse was less than 3 months showed a significant increase in the adrenal weight in comparison to control cases. In such cases, histopathological findings showed a loss of intracellular light granules from the zona fasciculata, which might indicate a loss of cholesterol due to the overproduction of glucocorticoid. These results might imply that the elderly, who were maltreated for less than 3 months, were in the early phase of a long-term stress state during which stress-induced overproduction of glucocorticoid was observed in adrenal glands as indicated by Selye. Our results suggest that an increase in adrenal weight may be a potential marker for elder abuse of relatively short periods, especially less than a few months.
authors.affiliation: Department of Legal Medicine, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Kagoshima University, Japan. takahito@m2.kufm.kagoshima-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Takahito
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.forename: Yasuo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bunai
authors.forename: Kazutoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ago
authors.forename: Mihoko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ago
authors.forename: Mamoru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ogata
mesh_terms: D000311:Adrenal Glands / Q000473:pathology*; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015415:Biomarkers; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004552:Elder Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size; D060168:Thymocytes / Q000473:pathology; D013950:Thymus Gland / Q000473:pathology*; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers