Detailed Analysis of Ante-mortem Burns in Relevant to Carboxy Haemoglobin

Abstract

Differentiation of Antemortem burns from post-mortem burns is a difficult task and also medico legally important one. It is mostly a matter for the police investigation. At present there is no definite sign to differentiate the Antemortem and post-mortem burns. Although a few criteria can be used as indicators of Ante-mortem burns such as presence of soot particles in the respiratory tract, vital reaction around the burnt area and the carboxy haemoglobin in the blood. Here an attempt has been made to study the prevalence of carboxy haemoglobin in death due to burns. It is a prospective study conducted by us on 2012, between May to August. In this study we tried to find out any relationship between carboxy haemoglobin level in blood and sex, age and fire accelerants used and the environment in which the incident occur. Among the 100 cases we analyzed, in the 90% of the cases, the fire accelerant responsible for the tragedy was kerosene. In this study out of 100 cases, among 68 cases of female died 33 cases because of suicide, 35 cases because of accident. In male among 32 cases died 24 cases due to suicide, and 8 cases because of accident. Most commonly affected age group was 18 to 30 years, followed by 31 to 40 years. Regarding place of occurrence 92% in indoor and 8% in outdoor. Carboxy haemoglobin was positive in 12 cases in which 11 cases are female and 1 case was male. Neverthless, we hope that the presented data add to a more complete understanding of the characteristics of CoHb in Antemortem burns.