A study of potassium level in pericardial fluid for estimation of time since death

This study was undertaken to study the correlation of potassium level of pericardial fluid with the time since death. Pericardial fluid samples were obtained from 100 medico-legal autopsy cases performed between April 99 to Jan 2000 in the Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi. Mean potassium values of all groups showed increasing pattern upto 36 hours after which the values were more or less constant. The mean increase of potassium was found highly significant with p<0.01 irrespective of cause of death. This indicates that the rise in potassium values after death has a strong correlation with the time since death irrespective of the cause of death.