The Application of Flow Cytometry as a Rapid and Sensitive Screening Method to Detect Contamination of Vitreous Humor Samples and Avoid Miscalculation of the Postmortem Interva

• Cristina Cordeiro ^[3] ; Rafael Seoane ^[1] ; Ana Camba ^[1] ; Elena Lendoiro ^[1] ; María S. Rodríguez-Calvo ^[1] ; Duarte N. Vieira ^[2] ; José Muñoz Barús
  1. [1] Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

     Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

     Santiago de Compostela, España

     
  2. [2] Universidade de Coimbra

     Universidade de Coimbra

     Coimbra (Sé Nova), Portugal

     
  3. [3] National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences – Centre Branch Coimbra Portugal

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• Localización: Journal of forensic sciences, ISSN-e 1556-4029, ISSN 0022-1198, Vol. 60, Nº. 5, 2015, págs. 1346-1349
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Research into maximizing the speed, precision, and reliability of estimating the postmortem interval (PMI) has been a recurring object of investigation and methodologies based on the vitreous humor (VH) have provided good results. However, contamination from causes not readily apparent, such as blood, can occur, and thus lead not only to an erroneous estimation of PMI, but also interfere with the correct identification of other substances in the VH. We have developed a flow cytometry method which quantifies blood contamination and is able to detect erythrocytes in 1:750,000 dilution of contaminated VH which affects the results of hypoxanthine. It is an improvement on the previous more complex mass spectrometry method, being faster, more sensitive, and readily available. As such, it could be proposed for therapid screening of appropriate samples by detecting and eliminating blood contaminated samples from PMI estimation