Liver trauma in autopsies performed in Mures County

K. Siklodi Palfi, H. Jung, L. Hecser

Abstract: Liver trauma in autopsies performed in Mures County. We studied retrospectively the autopsies performed in our Institute during the period of years 2004-2005, namely 1277 cases from which 877 (68,7%) were violent deaths. The liver – the largest abdominal organ – was injured in 85 cases (9,7% from the total of violent deaths). The liver injuries have a higher incidence in men, with M:F ratio being 6:1, in adult active-aged people (34 – 54 years old) with an average age of 45 years. There was an equal distribution on town/village place of living. Blood alcohol concentration was determined in 71 cases and was positive in 44 (62%), most of them having levels over 1,00‰. As of the juridical classification, traffic accidents correlate most intense with liver injuries: we noticed liver injuries in 31,4% of the traffic accidents and 57,6% of the liver trauma cases resulted from traffic accidents. The most frequent involved mechanisms were those of compression, collision-projection and combinations of the two (64,7% of the cases), followed by the crash to hard surfaces (14,1%). The right hepatic lobe was more often involved in injuries (45 cases together with 29 in which the lesions were in both lobes). Lacerations (profound and superficial) appeared as most frequent injury-types (71,7%) but we also noticed liver explosion, with massive parenchyma destruction, in 19 cases (22,3%). During our work, we observed a certain inconsistency in definition, localization and description of the liver injuries in autopsy reports, and for this reason we suggest a standard approach of these cases when performing a medicolegal autopsy.
Keywords: liver injury, accident