Korean Journal of Legal Medicine  2013;37(2):84-89

doi:10.7580/kjlm.2013.37.2.84

A Forensic Autopsy Case of Lissencephaly for Evaluating the Possibility of Child Abuse.

Seong Hwan PARK ; Juck Joon HWANG ; Kwang Soo KO ; Sun Hee KIM ; Tae Sung KO ; Min Hee JEONG ; Eun Hye LEE ; Hong Il HA ; Joong Seok SEO

Keywords

Lissencephaly; Child neglect; Child abuse; Forensic pathology; Autopsy

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

English

MeSH

Abstract

A 9-year-old Korean boy with lissencephaly was found dead at home. He had previously been diagnosed with lissencephaly that presented with infantile spasm on the basis of magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalogram results. Antemortem chromosomal banding revealed a normal karyotype. A legal autopsy was requested to eliminate the possibility of neglect or abuse by his parents. The autopsy findings revealed type I lissencephaly with the associated microcephaly. No external wounds or decubitus ulcers were noted. Postmortem fluorescence in situ hybridization for the LIS1 locus and nucleotide sequence analysis of the whole coding regions of the LIS1 gene did not reveal any deletions. The antemortem and postmortem findings revealed that lissencephaly syndrome was associated with isolated lissencephaly sequence. External causes of death were excluded by the full autopsy and toxicology test results. Because patients with mental retardation are frequently victimized and suffer neglect or abuse, thorough external and internal examinations should be conducted at the time of autopsy.