Animals ; Cytological Techniques ; methods ; Cytophotometry ; instrumentation ; methods ; Humans ; Pharmacology ; methods ; trends ; Systems Biology ; methods ; Toxicology ; methods ; trends

OBJECTIVE: Using computer image-analyze technique (CIAT) to study changes of geometry parameters in human spleen nuclei and seek a new experimental method to deduce the estimation the postmortem interval (PMI). METHODS: 31 cadavers that known accurate PMI, sampled and smeared respectively every hour within the first 36 hours after death, fixed with cold Carony fixation, stained by Feulgen-van's method, and measured 5 geometry parameters using the image-analyze instrument including Area (A), Mean-Dia (MD), Average Diameter (AD), perimeter (P), Index of density (ID). RESULTS: A, MD, AD and P in the human spleen nuclei have no correlation with the PMI. But ID rose regularly with the prolongation of PMI in 36 hours. There was a definite correlation between ID and the PMI, r=0.983, linear regression equation with PMI (hours) as the dependent variable was calculated for ID. CONCLUSION Geometry parameter ID was proved to be preferable indexes for estimation of PMI in 36 hours.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Cell Nucleus/ultrastructure* ; Cytophotometry/methods* ; DNA/metabolism* ; Female ; Forensic Pathology ; Humans ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods* ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Spleen/metabolism* ; Time Factors