1Junior Resident, Department of Forensic Medicine, IGGMC, Nagpur, Maharashtra
2Head of the, Department of Forensic Medicine, GMC, Chandrapur
3Head of the, Department of Forensic Medicine, IGGMC, Nagpur
*Corresponding author: Dr. Rajesh S Chintalwar Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Indira Gandhi Medical College, Nagpur, Maharashtra-440018, Phone no. 09767408101, E-mail: rchintalwar03@gmail.com
Online published on 17 August, 2016.
Estimation of time since death from potassium ion concentration levels in CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) was carried out in 100 medico legal autopsies with known time of death in the Dept. of Forensic Medicine IGGMC Nagpur. CSF was aspirated from lateral ventricles after opening the skull and dura, and concentration of K+ ion was estimated over dimention xpand plus autoanalyzer.
Results revealed the potassium ion concentration increased with increasing PMI and showed a positive significant correlation of r= 0.944 (p<0.001), the least square regression equation derived is found to be y=1.705x + 18.83, where y= potassium ion concentration (independent variable) and x= time since death (dependent variable)
There is no significant difference between calculated PMI and actual PMI
The CSF potassium ion concentration is useful to estimate time since death however further study required to correlate the concentration with cause of death.
K+ concentration, time since death, PMI (Post mortem interval
