Fatal gas embolism in hospital: accident or suicide?
| Autor: | Lars Oesterhelweg, Hannah Gauselmann, Lucia Tattoli |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Male
medicine.medical_specialty Autopsy Postmortem computed tomography Air embolism Palpation Pathology and Forensic Medicine Hospital Catheters Indwelling Iatrogenic cause Multidetector Computed Tomography medicine Embolism Air Humans Pericardium Whole Body Imaging Aged medicine.diagnostic_test business.industry Oxygen Inhalation Therapy Mediastinum General Medicine medicine.disease Gas embolism Surgery Hospitalization medicine.anatomical_structure Embolism Accidents medicine.symptom business Subcutaneous emphysema Thoracic wall |
| Zdroj: | Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology. 16:528-530 |
| ISSN: | 1556-2891 1547-769X |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s12024-020-00222-7 |
| Popis: | Fatal gas embolism in hospital is usually an iatrogenic complication of invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Air or gas enters the venous circulation, leading to cardiovascular failure or migrating to the systemic arterial circulation. A 73-year-old man died suddenly in hospital. An allergic reaction was initially suspected because of the presence of soft tissue swelling, but it was noticed that his oxygen tube was attached to the indwelling catheter inserted in the patient's right median cubital vein. Whole-body post-mortem multi-slice computed tomography (pm-MSCT) revealed abundant gas in the subcutaneous fatty tissue, in the heart chambers, in the mediastinum, pericardium, thoracic wall and peritoneum. The external examination revealed massive subcutaneous emphysema with marked palpable cutaneous tension and crepitation on palpation of the entire body's surface. Autopsy found gas bubbles in the heart and throughout the vascular system. Death was attributed to cardiac gas embolism. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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