Sudden unexpected infant death in Auckland: a retrospective case review.

Aim: To review autopsy reports of all SUDI deaths in the Auckland region, New Zealand, from October 2000 to December 2009.

Methods: Information on all SUDI cases from 2000 to 2009 was extracted from autopsy and police reports from the National Forensic Pathology Service at Auckland Hospital.

Results: Of the 332 post-mortems in this period, 221 were classified as SUDI.

Death in custody and undiagnosed central neurocytoma.

Fatal brain tumors are often diagnosed well before death. Rarely, they present as sudden and unexpected death. Most of these undiagnosed brain tumors are gliomas.

Death by midgut infarction: clinical lessons from 88 post-mortems in Auckland, New Zealand.

Background: Mortality rates from acute arterial mesenteric ischaemia remain high. Early diagnosis is of prognostic importance; however, early features are often non-specific, necessitating a high index of suspicion and knowledge of the at-risk patient. This study reviewed three decades of fatal cases in Auckland, New Zealand, to identify risk factors and associated pathologies that might help guide early diagnosis.

Comparison of the endothelial surface and subjacent elastic lamina of anterior descending coronary arteries at the location of atheromatous lesions with internal thoracic arteries of the same subjects: a scanning electron microscopic study.

Aim: Current theories fail to explain the localisation of atheromatous lesions or their variable incidence in different arteries of the same subject. The objective of this study was to compare by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) the endothelial surface and the subjacent elastic lamina of human coronary arteries at the location of areas showing infiltration by lipid and cells, with the same components of internal thoracic arteries of the same subjects.

Methods: The endothelial surface and the subjacent elastic lamina of localised atheromatous areas of 146 anterior descending coronary arteries were compared with the same structural components of the internal thoracic arteries of the same subjects, using SEM, transverse paraffin sections and freeze-fracture.