An Analysis Of Medicolegal Deaths Seen In The University Of Benin Teaching Hospital Between January 1990 And December 2009.

📄 Project Abstract

Introduction/Aim: Medicolegal autopsies are postmortem examinations performed at the instance of the law, when a coroner or another authority is instructed to determine the cause, time and the circumstances surrounding the cause of death. This is a retrospective study of all the medicolegal autopsies done in the Department of Histopathology, University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin City over a 20 year period (from 1st January 1990 to 31st December 2009) with the aim of collating and analyzing all cases in order to establish a preliminary data of all medicolegal deaths and determine the pattern of these cases. Materials and Method: The major sources of information were the mortuary registers of the Department of Histopathology UBTH. Also used were the duplicate copies of death certificates and Post mortem reports of the cases. Cases were those in which full autopsies were done following standard procedures as described in standard books and histology done where applicable. Re...