A Prospective study of Autopsy Findings in Deaths due to Hanging in Kanpur District of Uttar Pradesh, India

Hanging is ligature compression of neck by weight of one's own body due to suspension. The current study was done with the aim of studying the external and internal postmortem findings in cases of deaths due to hanging in Kanpur region of U.P. and to correlate it with the established findings by previous authors.

A prospective study was conducted in the department of forensic medicine in GSVM Medical college Kanpur from jan 2013 to jan 2014. During that period out of 3667 cases subjected to medicolegal autopsy, 348 cases of hanging were selected for the present study.

We found that 96.55% cases presented with complete hanging and atypical hanging was found in 95.11% cases. The mark was obliquely placed in 100% cases and was above the thyroid cartilage in 92.24% cases. Dupatta(27.29%) was the most common ligature material used. Dribbling of saliva considered as hallmark of antemortem hanging was present in 77.29% cases and 85.6% cases had glove and stocking type of postmortem lividity. The fracture of thyroid cartilage was noted in 2.5% cases.

Under all circumstances it is crucial for the forensic expert to be able to consider and detect all autopsy findings as described here in order to reach reasonable medical conclusions on the cause and manner of death in each individual investigation of hanging death. Our study also highlights the importance as well as need for use of histopathological examinations which can show vital reaction changes and hence are useful for labelling Ante-mortem hanging in doubtful cases.