Usefulness of Dipstick Test for Vitreous Glucose in Autopsy Practice.

Lee, Kyunghong; Koo, Hyung Nam; Kim, Tae Gong; Park, Jeong Yeol; Baek, Kang Hyun; Choi, Seung Gyu; Choi, Cheol Ho; Aum, Nahyun; Lee, Nak Won; Choi, Byung Ha

doi:2016.40.4.99

Korean J Leg Med > Volume 40(4); 2016 > Article

Original article

Korean Journal of Legal Medicine 2016;40(4):99-103.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2016.40.4.99 Published online November 30, 2016.

Usefulness of Dipstick Test for Vitreous Glucose in Autopsy Practice.

Kyunghong Lee, Hyung Nam Koo, Tae Gong Kim, Jeong Yeol Park, Kang Hyun Baek, Seung Gyu Choi, Cheol Ho Choi, Nahyun Aum, Nak Won Lee, Byung Ha Choi

Division of Forensic Medicine Investigation, National Forensic Service Seoul Institute, Seoul, Korea. pathosky@korea.kr

Abstract

The concentration of glucose in the vitreous humor serves as an important diagnostic marker for diabetic mellitus in post-mortem examinations, as the vitreous humor can be easily collected and the glucose test using vitreous humor is not significantly affected by cell autolysis and hemolysis. For a quick and effective glucose test, we suggest a dipstick test of the vitreous humor during autopsy. The results were evaluated and compared with other methods for significance testing. In this study, vitreous humor was analyzed from 257 autopsy cases. Qualitative concordance rate of the dipstick test for glucose and the hexokinase test was 98.7%, positive prediction rate was 89.6%, and negative prediction rate was 100%. However, there was no significant correlation between the dipstick glucose test and the hexokinase test. We conclude that the dipstick glucose test is effective and useful for post-mortem glucose screening testing and for additional post-mortem diabetes testing. Recently, the importance of post-mortem glucose testing has increased with the increase in deaths from diabetes complications. The use of the dipstick glucose test in autopsy practice can improve forensic medicine in Korea.

Key Words: Vitreous humor, Glucose, Diabetic mellitus, Autopsy