Matricide and psychiatric evaluation: An update.

Matricide is an infrequent crime that has often raised to the suspicion that the offender could suffer from a pathological mental status. Although it is hard to establish a relationship between mental disorders and specific forms of homicide, several studies suggest that matricide offender frequently suffers from schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. Aim of the study was to review the literature in order to explore epidemiologic and psychiatric characteristics of matricide offenders with a focus on the cause of death and crime circumstances.

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome: About a Postnatal Death.

Background: Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a congenital heart disease that is associated with high mortality rates in the early neonatal period and during surgical treatments. This is mainly due to missed prenatal diagnosis, delayed diagnostic suspicion, and consequent unsuccessful therapeutic intervention.

Case Report: twenty-six hours after birth, a female newborn died of severe respiratory failure.

MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry Analysis and Human Post-Mortem Microbial Community: A Pilot Study.

Introduction: The human post-mortem microbiome (HPM) plays a major role in the decomposition process. Successional changes in post-mortem bacterial communities have been recently demonstrated using high throughput metagenomic sequencing techniques, showing great potential as a post-mortem interval (PMI) predictor. The aim of this study is to verify the application of the mass spectrometry technique, better known as MALDI-TOF MS (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry), as a cheap and quick method for microbe taxonomic identification and for studying the PM microbiome.

Electrocution Stigmas in Organ Damage: The Pathological Marks.

Background: Diagnostic criteria for electrocution related death are still a challenge in forensic pathology and it seems that the electrical mark is the only reliable evidence.

Methods: A comparison of histological and morphological findings of skin and internal organs from an autopsy series of electrocution deaths with those mostly reported in literature as representative for electrocution.

Results: The morphological changes of heart, brain and other main internal organs are still unspecific.