Fatal head injury in children younger than 2 years in New York City and an overview of the shaken baby syndrome.

Context: Shaken baby syndrome is a controversial topic in forensic pathology. Some forensic pathologists state that shaking alone is insufficient to explain death and that an impact must have occurred even if there is no impact site on the head.

Objective: To examine a large cohort of fatal, pediatric head injuries for patterns of specific autopsy findings and circumstances that would support or dispute pure shaking as the cause of death.

Dexmedetomidine related cardiac arrest in a patient with permanent pacemaker; a cautionary tale.

Dexmedetomidine (Precedex), an alpha-2 adrenergic receptor agonist is frequently and safely used as sedative agent during surgical procedures. We report a case of a 76-year-old woman who developed cardiac arrest from the use of dexmedetomidine during pacemaker lead extraction procedure.

Use of "therapeutic complication" as a manner of death.

Analyses of deaths due to therapeutic complications (TCs) provide important quality of care information for medical providers. In New York City, 463 deaths were investigated by the Office of Chief Medical Examiner and certified with TC as the manner of death in 2003. The TC manner of death is used for fatalities due to predictable complications of appropriate medical therapy.

Fatal complications of bariatric surgery.

Background: Bariatric surgery is an increasingly used method to treat morbid obesity. The mortality rate among patients undergoing bariatric operations is generally quoted as between 0.05-2.

The happy land homicides: 87 deaths due to smoke inhalation.

We reviewed all 87 deaths from the Happy Land Social Club fire. All deaths were due to smoke inhalation. The carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) concentrations ranged from 37 to 93% with a mean of 76.