Study of Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis in Sudden Deaths and Its Medico-legal Relevance

The coronary artery diseases can play a crucial medico- legal role to decide the cause of sudden death whether natural or unnatural. There are certain occasions, when a person dies on the operating table or soon after surgery, and a coronary attack is probably the cause of death. A final coronary episode may sometimes be associated with an operative procedure supposedly due to hypotensive state. During driving or piloting a person may goes into a state of confusion because heart attack. In this state he may lose control and an accident can happen. These conditions indicate that intervention of Forensic Pathologist is significant to decide the actual cause of death apart from injury or disease of vital organs. We examine coronary arteries for atherosclerotic changes in 50 cases of sudden deaths. We observed that there were marked intimal thickening with luminal narrowing ≤ 75% of luminal diameter in 20 cases (40%) in total hearts. In natural deaths 17 cases (48.57%) showed luminal narrowing ≤ 75% of luminal diameter. These findings are suggestive of medico legal intervention to clarify the mode of death in some instances.