Postmortem Histological Sequential Changes In Human Renal Vessels And Pelvis Of Ureter Up To Thirteen Hours Post Mortem Interval.

This study was performed in Department of Anatomy in close association with the Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology Pt.J.N.M.Medical college and Dr. B.R.Ambedkar Memorial Hospital Raipur (C.G.).Present study was done on human cadaver. Material for the present study was renal vessels and pelvis of ureter, taken directly from the dead bodies during postmortem examination.Human renal vessels and pelvis of ureter was obtained as and when available from cadavers at the time of autopsy. It was removed from cadavers with a known time of death where death had resulted from accident. The stages for which it was available were temperature between14.8/25.1-27.6/42.20C,humidity between 17/53 to 75/95% and duration range was between 4hr30min to 13hr. In the present study 11 cases were studied. In each case renal vessels and pelvis of ureter were studied histologically. The renal artery (tunica intima, media, adventitia), renal vein(tunica intima, media, adventitia) and pelvis of ureter (transitional epithelium, muscle layer, fibrous layer) were studied. In this study increase in the rate of postmortem histological sequential changes were found to be increased with rise in the temperature and duration. In the preasent study earliest remarkable sequntial postmotem histological changes were seen after PMI 4hrs 30 mins (T 23.9/33.4 0C ) in transitional epithelium of pelvis of ureter and tunica adventitia of renal vein. In the present study sequential postmortem histological changes of renal vessels and pelvis of ureter were studied. Retraction of epithelium from basement membrane and its disruption with darkening of nuclei of endothelial cell and loss of endothelial cells were observed in tunica intima of renal vessels. Appearance of clear spaces between smooth muscle fibres, broken smooth muscle fibres, nuclear pyknosis, karyorrhexis and loss of architecture were observed in tunica media of renal vessels. Various degree of loss of adventitial tissue (i.e. mild, moderate,moderate to severe,severe) and disruption of collagen fibres with loss of architecture were observed in tunica adventitia of renal vessels. Retraction and disruption of epithelium with individualization of cells, nuclear pyknosis, karyolysis and loss of epithelial architecture were observed in transitional epithelium of pelvis of ureter. Post-mortem histological changes are directly dependent not only on the length of post-mortem time but also to a bigger extent on the temperature of environment. The rate of autolysis varies with environmental temperature, body size, nutritional status, pelage.The changes were found to be irregular in some cases. In the present study it was observed that sequential postmortem histological changes were different in some cases of same duration. The main reason lies in the fact that there are an extreme number of factors, which influence the post-mortem degradation of tissue in each case. The rate of cellular degradation is increased by large carcass size, excessive adipose tissue, thick fur or wool and antemortem hyperthermia caused by pyrexia violent exercise or heat exhaustion