Diagnosis of sickle cell disease at autopsy: A case report

Individual suffering from sickle cell disease may present to forensic pathologist as a case of sudden death. The postmortem diagnosis of SCD related death is often difficult because of failure to anticipate the presence of such disorder. In addition, actually making the diagnosis of sickle cell crisis as a cause of death is confounded by the likelihood of antemortem, perimortem or postmortem sickling unrelated to the cause of death. In this communication we are presenting the findings related to the diagnosis of SCD at autopsy by using hemoglobin electrophoresis. In the present case, we are able to obtain result up to 5 hours postmortem interval.