Sudden death of a 17-year-old boy due to suspected Williams syndrome.

In this article, we present a case of sudden death of a 17-year-old boy, in which diagnosis of Williams syndrome was firstly suspected after medicolegal autopsy, on the basis of typical macroscopical changes (facial appearance, dental status, supravalvular aortic stenosis with mild enlargement of the heart and significant thickening of the left ventricular myocardium) as well as heteroanamnestic data (slight mental retardation and nervousness). All other causes of sudden death were excluded. The definite diagnosis of this syndrome could not be corroborated as specific genetic analysis (fluorescent in situ hybridization test) could not be performed because of the lack of appropriate technical facilities.

Postmortem production of ethanol in different tissues under controlled experimental conditions.

The aim of this study was to follow the postmortem ethanol production phenomenon under controlled experimental conditions (temperature, time interval) in different tissues. Specimens of blood, liver, skeletal muscle and kidney were taken from 30 corpses and no chemical preservatives were used in the specimens collected. Ethanol concentrations were detected by gas chromatography.