Sudden death due to malignant tumours of the testis

Abstract

Sudden unexpected death of apparent healthy young males due to malignant tumours are extremely rare in forensic autopsy material. We report on three such cases dying of pulmonary embolism caused by metastazing tumour of the testis. In each subject the tumour was localized to the right testis and consisted of two types of tumour tissue: Seminoma and embryonic carcinoma, the latter of which was always the metastazing one. Each of the cases represent different aspects of forensic medicine. In the first subject the tumour had remained undiagnosed in a recent medical examination. The second one underwent surgery because of acute abdomen and died intraoperatively and the third one died suddenly during antibiotic treatment, because the tumour had been mistakenly diagnosed as orchitis.