Ions as markers of the vitality of the wound and their postmortem stability

The diagnostic value of new markers of wound vitality such as the ions Ca, Mg, Cu, Zn and Fe, in addition to the influence of putrefaction on them, have been studied in this work. For this purpose, vital wounds were inflicted to three horses, which were killed 20 min. later. Ten minutes after death, wounds were excised with 5-6 cm skin around the incision and maintained at the ambient temperature. After varying periods of postmortem interval from 0 to 48 h, aliquots of each wound were taken and analyzed with atomic absorption spectrophotometry for ions. The present results demonstrated that the metal ions levels estimation in the skin injury edge may be a useful method to differentiate vital from postmortem wounds, in addition, ions conserve their diagnostic ability after the influence of putrefaction