Korean J Leg Med.  2016 Nov;40(4):119-124. 10.7580/kjlm.2016.40.4.119.

Discrepancies in the Cause and Manner of Death Reported in Postmortem Inspection and Autopsy

• Na JY
• Kim HG
• Kim EJ
• Lee SJ
• Lee BW

• KMID: 2361333
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2016.40.4.119

Abstract

Currently in the Republic of Korea, most postmortem investigations occur within the context of a death scene investigation and are restricted to a postmortem inspection without a subsequent autopsy. In this study, we analyzed the discrepancies between the results of postmortem inspection and autopsy to investigate the limits of postmortem inspection. The conclusions about the cause and manner of death stated in the two reports were compared. A retrospective study was carried out on 6,126 autopsy cases performed in the Republic of Korea in 2015. Of these autopsy cases, 2,263 included postmortem inspection reports. The stated cause and manner of death conflicted with the autopsy report in 55.1% and 32.9% of the postmortem inspection reports, respectively. Among these conflicted reports, the cause and manner of death was undetermined in 66.6% and 70.3% of the postmortem inspection reports, respectively. Furthermore, different types of discrepancies were found between the causes and manner of death that were stated in the reports by police investigators and those by forensic pathologists. This study revealed that postmortem inspection is not sufficient in the postmortem investigation and forensic autopsies need to be performed.

Keyword

Autopsy; Comparative study; Cause of death; Republic of Korea

MeSH Terms

Autopsy*
Cause of Death
Humans
Police
Republic of Korea
Research Personnel
Retrospective Studies