Sudden Natural Deaths - An Autopsy Study

SNDs certainly pose Medico-legal problems to law imposing authorities, relatives of the deceased and also to the doctors. The need for an autopsy examination becomes more important in presence of suspicious deaths, and deaths in presence of witnesses and under circumstances in which factors of emotional and physical strain may have played a role. PM examination in SNDs also assumes importance in context of insurance claims and may discourage unnecessary and unwanted litigations. Statistics of the different cases taken on the lines of etiological classification [majority of the sudden natural deaths (66%) were due to diseases of the cardio-vascular system, followed by deaths due to diseases of respiratory system accounting to 20%. Diseases of CNS and GI system constituted about 4% each for sudden natural deaths and remaining 6% by miscellaneous condition like malnutrition added with infection], age incidence [maximum no. of cases, i.e. 11 (22%) seen in the age group of 46 - 50 yrs], sex incidence [45 males cases (90%) and only 5 female cases (10%)], religion distribution [majority of the cases 29 (58%) being hindus], food habits [25 Non vegetarian cases (24%) and 12 vegetarian cases (24%)], personal habits [smokers and alcoholics with 10 cases (20%) and 11 cases (22%) respectively and 28 cases (56%) as non-smokers and 30 cases (60%) as non-alcoholics], and the period of survival [26 cases (52%) found dead elsewhere and 16 cases (32%) presented with history of brought dead to the hospital] have been reported.