Changes in heart dimensions in decomposition using porcine and ovine animal models: a method for estimating decomposed human heart weight
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Garland, J
Thompson, M
Ondruschka, B
Da Broi, U
Day, C
Tse, R
Allavena, R
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Abstract
Heart weight is a routine measurement at post-mortem examination. An increased heart weight is associated with pre-existing heart disease and sudden cardiac death. However, during decomposition, the heart weight measured at post-mortem examination may not reflect the weight at the time of death. A previous study showed that heart dimensions can be used to estimate heart weight. This study documents the changes in heart dimensions during decomposition using porcine and ovine animal models. It shows that, in contrast to heart weight, which decreases in the post-mortem interval, the heart dimensions increase. Heart width increases and subsequently plateaus at the end of the 18 days to a mean of 6 and 8 mm in ovine and porcine hearts, whereas the length continues to increase. Using the results of this study, in conjunction with previous published literature, the heart width may be used as a parameter to estimate heart weight and determine cardiac hypertrophy at the time of death in decomposed hearts.
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Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences
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© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advance online version.
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Cardiology (incl. cardiovascular diseases)
Biomedical and clinical sciences
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Low, Z; Garland, J; Thompson, M; Ondruschka, B; Da Broi, U; Day, C; Tse, R; Allavena, R, Changes in heart dimensions in decomposition using porcine and ovine animal models: a method for estimating decomposed human heart weight, Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 2024