Prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae infections among sexual assault victims referred to three French clinical forensic units.

Background: Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) and Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) infections are the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) worldwide. These STIs are frequently asymptomatic, which often delays diagnosis and treatment with the risk of serious long-term complications. Current French recommendations call for targeted screening of populations considered to be at risk, including victims of sexual assault.

Fatal bowel perforation caused by ingestion of high-powered magnets in a 6-year-old boy.

Foreign body ingestion in children is a frequent cause for medical consultation. Although most foreign bodies are spontaneously eliminated from the gastrointestinal tract, life-threatening complications such as gastrointestinal obstruction or perforation can occur. We report the case of a 6-year-old boy who died 2 days after the onset of nausea and abdominal pain, with no foreign body ingestion witnessed or reported in the previous days.

Ex Vivo Comparison of the Elastic Properties of Vascular Substitutes Used for Pulmonary Artery Replacement.

Introduction: Study aims were to evaluate the elastic properties of vascular substitutes frequently used for pulmonary artery (PA) replacement, and then to compare their compliance and stiffness indexes to those of human PA.

Methods: A bench-test pulsatile flow experiment was developed to perfuse human cadaveric vascular substitutes (PA, thoracic aorta, human pericardial conduit), bovine pericardial conduit, and prosthetic vascular substitutes (polytetrafluorethylene and Dacron grafts) at a flow and low pulsed pressure mimicking pulmonary circulation. Intraluminal pressure was measured.

Influence of the toxicological status on the diagnosis of fatal drowning.

Drowning is the leading cause of death by accident of everyday life in people under 25 years of age. Xenobiotics are frequently involved in drowning cases but their influence on the diagnosis of fatal drowning has not been studied so far. This preliminary study aimed to assess the influence of an alcohol and/or a drug intoxication on the autopsy signs of drowning, and on the results of diatom analyses in drowning deaths.

Influence of the ear temperature range on the measurement bias between an infrared thermometer and a reference probe for post-mortem interval determination.

The aim of this study was to assess the influence of the post-mortem outer ear temperature (OET) on the measurement bias previously observed for short post-mortem intervals (PMI) between a commercially available infrared thermometer and a reference metal probe thermometer. To that end, 100 refrigerated bodies were added to our initial cohort to investigate lower OET. In contrast to our previous findings, a very good concordance was noted between both methods.