Histopathological Findings in a Fatal Case of Paraquat Poisoning.

ABSTRACT: Fatal paraquat ingestion presents many interesting pathological findings for the forensic pathologist. The majority of prior research regarding paraquat poisoning has focused on the lung and liver, this article is further directed to and presents some of the histopathological findings present in the brain. Typical macroscopic and histopathological findings of paraquat poisoning were identified in the liver and lungs. The brain was found to be edematous with widening of the centrum semiovale, whereas histologically, it was found that there was extravasation of erythrocytes into the surrounding Virchow-Robin spaces, a finding normally associated with blunt force head injury and, therefore, commonly interpreted by forensic pathologists as a cortical contusion hemorrhage.

Histopatholological Findings in a Fatal Case of Rinkhals Envenomation: A New Forensic Pathology Finding?

Although cobra envenomation continues to pose a threat to life and therefore constitutes a major cause of death in Africa, India, and Sri Lanka, the forensic pathology reports are not always histologically well documented or illustrated. The reports in the literature, although providing graphic evidence of the macroscopic appearances of the bite and its ensuing tissue necrosis, should the victim survive, often do not illustrate the histopathological findings to a sufficient degree. We present an unusual case of fatal envenomation by a rinkhals (Hemachatus haemachatus) in which the victim had been bitten a second time after a previous rinkhals' bite. Two issues therefore arose: (a) whether the histopathological findings in the spleen were an acute reaction to the snake bite or were due to immunostimulation as a consequence of the previously inflicted bite, and (b) the previously undocumented finding of extravasation of erythrocytes into the surrounding Virchow-Robin spaces in the brain, a finding usually associated with blunt head trauma and therefore interpreted as a cortical contusion hemorrhage by forensic pathologists.