Death, determining cause

Comment. These categories may be combined into one (otherwise it requires a careful cause of death determination). 

The Coroner or Medical Examiner is responsible for determining cause-of-death in the sudden or unexplained demise of all persons in his jurisdiction. The terms of his work are legally defined whether he operates on a state or local, county basis. To assist him he relies heavily upon trained investigators, forensic pathologists and of course the toxicologist. 

Long G. Recommendations to guide determining cause of death in toxicity studies. Toxicol Pathol 2004 32 269-70. 

The mortality data do not reveal a cause for concern chat significant numbers of the men exposed to the anticholinergics suffered an untimely death. Because the participants were all especially selected for these studies on the basis of their health records, there were relatively few deaths In all groups. It Is Impossible to determine how much less chan 1.0 the SMR values should have been. Comparison of the values of Che various groups would not be expected to reveal treatment effects unless these were sizable, which was not the case. However, a small drug effect might be masked by this type of data analysis. For the same reasons, further subdivision of the deaths by cause does not provide useful data. Mortality Is discussed In greater detail In Chapter 4. 

Dose-limiting toxicity and cause of death determination... 

A. Acute ingestion. Vomiting occurs shortly after ingestion, followed by hyper-pnea, tinnitus, and lethargy. Mixed respiratory alkalemia and metabolic acidosis are apparent when arterial blood gases are determined. With severe intoxication, coma, seizures, hypoglycemia, hyperthermia, and pulmonary edema may occur. Death is caused by central nervous system failure and cardiovascular collapse. 

Forensic pathology involves the diagnosis of cause of death, determination of time of death, estimation of... 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory is operated through the Department of the Interior and is the only laboratory worldwide that focuses solely on crimes against wildlife. Laboratory expertise in genetic and chemical analysis, as well as firearms, trace evidence, latent prints, and pathology is used to analyze wildlife evidence to identify species and determine cause of death. 

Most toxicologists, especially forensic toxicologists, work in labs that are part of law-enforcement agencies. Others work with medical examiners to determine cause of death. Private drug-testing facilities or poison-control centers are another source of employment for these scientists. 

Immunoassays combine chemistry and immunology to test for specific analytes. Immunoassays detect antibody-antigen reaction. These tests are used in forensic science to analyse biological specimens for the presence of alcohol, drugs, toxins and poisons, and to determine causes of death in criminal investigations. 

Stark A, Scott J. A review of the use of clozapine levels to guide treatment and determine cause of death. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 2012 46(9) 816-25. 

Methods to Detect and Quantitate Viral Agents in Fluids. In order to assess the effectiveness of membrane filtration the abihty to quantitate the amount of vims present pre- and post-filtration is critical. There are a number of techniques used. The method of choice for filter challenge studies is the plaque assay which utilizes the formation of plaques, localized areas in the cell monolayer where cell death caused by viral infection in the cell has occurred on the cell monolayer. Each plaque represents the presence of a single infectious vims. Vims quantity in a sample can be determined by serial dilution until the number of plaques can be accurately counted. The effectiveness of viral removal may be determined, as in the case of bacterial removal, by comparing the vims concentration in the input suspension to the concentration of vims in the effluent. 

The LD50 is the statistically derived single dosage of a substance that can be expected to cause death in 50% of the sample population. It is therefore an indicator of acute toxicity, usually determined by ingestion using rats or mice, although other animals may be used. LD50 is also determined by other routes, e.g. by skin absorption in rabbits. The values are affected by species, sex, age, etc. 

The purpose of a scoping analysis is to determine, under worst case assumptions, if there is a risk that can cause injury, death or financial impact to the public, workers, company, or environment. The PSA begins by identifying the hazards, their physical and chemical properties, the confinement, conditions and distance for transport to a target, estimating the effects on the target, and comparing these effects with accepted criteria. 

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