Determination of heroin after embalmment.

A 30-year-old male died in Thailand after a scuffle. The corpse was embalmed and repatriated to France where an autopsy was performed. As usual in cases of embalmment, fluids such as blood and urine were unavailable and the toxicological analyses was performed on the bile and the liver. An overdose of heroin was determined as the cause of death. A review of the literature indicates that several drugs can be detected in fluids and tissues that contain formaldehyde. This case demonstrates that in embalmed corpses, toxicological assessment is still possible, e.g. after heroin fatalities.

Acute fatal poisoning with cyamemazine.

A case of fatal poisoning with cyamemazine is presented. The cyamemazine was identified in post-mortem blood using a specific gas chromatographic/mass spectrometry method. The autopsy blood concentration of cyamemazine was 1800 ng/ml. Chronic use of cyamemazine was demonstrated by the presence of the drug in hair. Two other drugs were also detected (bromazepam and trimeprazine). We think that this current blood concentration (1800 ng/ml) is a fatal blood concentration because of the negativity of the other parameters, but careful interpretation of analytical findings are important, the possibility that this death was a consequence of the toxicity of combined drugs could not be excluded. Not many therapeutics and toxic levels were previously reported in overdosage cases in which cyamemazine was involved. We consider that this concentration is only of guidance value for a fatal cyamemazine poisoning.

Reexamination of a measurement for sexual determination using the supero-inferior femoral neck diameter in a modern European population.

The present study reexamines the accuracy of the supero-inferior femoral neck diameter for the determination of sex using a modern sample of French individuals. In 1998, Seidemann et al. used this univariate method for sex determination with the Hamann-Todd collection. Stojanowski and Seidemann in 1999 tested previous results on a modern sample taken from the University of New Mexico and concluded that the Caucasian male samples exhibited no significant differences between individuals born before and after 1900, but the Caucasian female subgroup did exhibit differences with an increase of the SID in the modern sample. The current study compares the previous results of the supero-inferior femoral neck diameter with a modern sample of elderly French individuals born after 1910. Both sides of the femur were measured. No statistical difference was found between the right and left side (p = 0.31). The results showed a significant difference between the pre-1900 and the modern sample, with an increase in femoral neck diameter in modern populations. The comparison of the SID values between the two modern samples (Mexico and Nice) showed no significant differences in the femoral neck diameter in the two male subgroups (p = 0.05), but the measurements of the SID in the female subgroup did exhibit significant differences with an increase of the neck femoral diameter (p < 0.01) in the modern French population. These results demonstrate an increase in the neck femoral morphology in the elderly European French females samples.

A comparison between neural network and other metric methods to determine sex from the upper femur in a modern French population.

Forensic anthropologists are frequently asked to assess partial or badly damaged skeletal remains. One such request led us to compare the predictive accuracy of different mathematical methods using four non-standard measurements of the proximal femur (trochanter-diaphysis distance (TD), greater-lesser trochanter distance (TT), greater trochanter width (TW) and trochanter-head distance (TH)). These measurements were taken on 76 femurs (38 males and 38 females) of French individuals. Intra- and inter-observer trials did not reveal any significant statistical differences. The predictive accuracy of three models built using linear and non-linear modelling techniques was compared: discriminant analysis, logistic regression and neural network. The neural network outperformed discriminant analysis and, to a lesser extent, logistic regression. Indeed, the best results were obtained with a neural network that correctly classified 93.4% of femurs, with similar results in males (92.1%) and females (94.7%). Univariate functions were less accurate (68-88%). Discriminant analysis and logistic regression, both using all four variables, led to slightly better results (88.2% and 89.5%, respectively). In addition, all the models, save the neural network, led to unbalanced results between males and females. In conclusion, the artificial neural network is a powerful classification technique that may improve the accuracy rate of sex determination models for skeletal remains.

Sex determination from the distal part of the femur in a French contemporary population.

Until now, determining the sex of a recently deceased individual using the measurement of the bicondylar breadth of the femur (also known as condylar width, epicondylar breadth and distal epiphyseal breadth) raised some concerns as to accuracy because no sample of contemporary French subjects was available. In this study, a sample of 88 female and male femurs taken from recently deceased elderly French people was studied. The bones were collected from subjects who had donated their bodies to the Medical School of Nice. The mean value of the male bicondylar breadth was found to be greater than that of females (84.3mm versus 74.8mm), confirming the sexual dimorphism of this parameter. Furthermore, the results showed a 95.4% accuracy rate for sexing individuals. To date, in the French population, as in some other samples, epicondylar breadth is the single most accurate measurement of sex determination, ahead even of head diameter. A discriminant function is presented to allow sex determination from remains of the distal femur. With regard to the data available in the literature, sexual dimorphism is probably the result of both genetic and environmental factors. The comparison of our results with those of other populations shows that there are inter-population variations of the bicondylar breadth, and also intra-population variations that account for the differences in the accuracy rate of this variable for the purposes of sex determination. These findings underscore the need to re-evaluate bone measurements within various contemporary populations.