Biliakov A. Forensic medical substantiation of lethal mechanical injury duration based on metabolic changes in the body at the early stages of ante mortem period.

The thesis substantiates a new approach to solving an urgent problem of practical importance, i. e. that of the criteria formulation to determine the duration of a lethal mechanical injury at an early stage of ante mortem period. It is determined that fluorometric measurement of the amount of catecholamines (adrenaline, noradrenaline) in pericardial and cerebrospinal fluids allowed to observe its dynamical changes depending on the duration of dying. This makes it possible to determine not only the duration of ante mortem period but also the death genesis. Research of the quantity of biogenic amines (histamine, serotonin) in pericardial and cerebrospinal fluids showed the dynamic character of their changes depending on the duration of a lethal mechanical injury. This also lets us determine the duration of ante mortem period and confirm the traumatic death genesis. With the help of thin-layer chromatography using computer technologies to measure the level of cholesterol, cholesterol esters as well as their transmutation products, i.e. such steroid hormones as cortisol and cortisone, diagnostically significant criteria of their amount in adrenal tissue have been defined which allow determining the duration of a lethal mechanical injury at the early stages of ante mortem period. Using photometric detection of middle molecules in lung tissue, pericardial and cerebrospinal fluids some diagnostically significant criteria have been established which allow verifying traumatic death genesis and measure the duration of dying of a person after a lethal injury. Histological examination using hematoxylin staining followed by computer processing of the catecholamine myocardial damage have found variable quantitative parameters of catecholamine damage degree in different compartments of heart when compared both in the groups of those lethally injured with different duration of dying and with the controls.