The Relevance of Synergy Between Forensic Pathologist and Toxicologist in Medico-Legal Autopsies

ABSTRACT

In forensic toxicology the main relevant scope of toxicologist is to answer these following questions: which kind of drug is involved? Is the analytical result related to death? Which is the supposed lethal dose? Despite the technological improvement in laboratory medicine, the main questions are apparently unresolved, because the availability of new laboratory instrumentation has sometimes increased the complexity of the medical examiner task. In post mortem toxicology the medical examiner’s and the toxicologist’s role is constantly challenged by analytical, methodological, circumstantial problems, and only the single professional experience can help to find which drug is involved.

In our experience the only way to avoid, or limit, mistakes is to follow strictly a Search Strategy, which combines single professional experience, circumstantial data and a correct and a punctual manner of sampling from corpses. The most complete and proper tissue sampling from autopsy is mandatory for the whole diagnostic process. This approach in synergy with the pathologist and toxicologist dialogue can help the medical examiner to avoid mistakes and positively infer the whole diagnostic process.