NCJ Number
210785
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 50 Issue: 4 Dated: July 2005 Pages: 910-912
Date Published
July 2005
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This paper reports a case of a 2-year-old girl with no past medical history who presented with fatal blunt force abdominal injury, with the autopsy revealing lacerations in the liver and previously undiagnosed peliosis hepatis, which is an abnormal accumulation of blood-filled lakes in the liver generally associated with chronic wasting diseases, the use of androgenic steroids, or bacterial infection.
Abstract
It is reasonable to conclude that the girl's abnormal liver was predisposed to hemorrhaging from any abdominal trauma; however, this is the first reported case in the literature of hemorrhage and/or death from traumatic injury of the liver in a person with peliosis hepatis. Had the girl not had the traumatic injury to her abdomen the long-term prognosis for the peliosis hepatis would likely have been good. Peliosis hepatis is most often asymptomatic, as liver function may be normal or only marginally affected. It may recede after an associated drug is removed from the system or an infectious agent is addressed, or it can spontaneously regress. Rarely does it cause hemorrhaging or death; however, Hayward et al. reports the case of a 50-year-old woman with peliosis hepatis and no illness or drug use who had two episodes of spontaneous hemorrhaging that required partial hepatectomy; and Cragg et al. described a 13-month-old White male with an otherwise unremarkable medical history who had peliosis hepatis localized to the right side of the liver; he required a partial hepatectomy due to hemorrhage. Spontaneous hemorrhage rarely results in death, but it is not unusual to see extensive destruction of liver parenchyma when fatal hemorrhage occurs. It was clear in the case reported here, however, that a physical beating caused the hemorrhage in the liver. 5 figures and 16 references