Abstract

Background: Sudden death in an apparently healthy individual usually arises suspicion among the public. In such cases, autopsies help to ascertain the exact cause of death and thereby assist the investigating officer in disposing the case. Objectives: To determine the incidence, sex and age wise distribution, causes of death in sudden natural deaths reported in the study centre, and to correlate the postmortem and histopathology findings in these cases. Methodology: Sudden natural death cases autopsied over 10 years from January 2012 to December 2022 were studied retrospectively. Results: About 93 cases of suddennatural death cases were autopsied during the study period. The age of the study sample was ranged from 15-80 years with 86% male prevalence. In majority of the cases, the cause of death was due to cardiovascular diseases (76.3%), followed by cerebrovasculardiseases (8.6%), gastrointestinal diseases (8.6%), respiratory diseases (4.28%) and genitourinary diseases (2.14%). The autopsy and histopathology findingshelped to ascertain the causes of death. Conclusion:Autopsy in sudden death cases helps to ascertain the cause of death and thereby help to resolve the suspicious cases.

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