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The R ole of V itreous M agnesium Q uantification in E stimating the P ostmortem I nterval
Author(s) -
Mihailovic Zoran,
Atanasijevic Tatjana,
Popovic Vesna,
Milosevic Miroslav B.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/1556-4029.12286
Subject(s) - magnesium , chemistry , food science , zoology , biology , organic chemistry
The use of magnesium as a parameter to estimate the time of death is controversial. In 32 traumatic deaths with known postmortem intervals ( PMI s), small quantities of vitreous humor ( VH ) were sampled repetitively every 3 h until 24 h postmortem. The bodies were kept at the constant ambient temperature of 20°C (68°F). The concentrations of magnesium were in the range of 0.47–1.15 mM. A statistically significant correlation of the concentration of magnesium with the PMI was observed ( r = 0.453, p < 0.01), but with small predictive value—coefficient of variation for regression was 45.5%; the average of the paired differences between the estimated and actual PMI s was 5.24 + 3.19 h. Although useful results might be expected due to the large transmembrane gradient for magnesium, the results of this study strongly disprove the usefulness of measuring magnesium in VH to estimate the time of death.