Why the study?
When a heart is partially fragmented during post-mortem examination, obtaining an accurate weight directly is difficult, requiring estimation from heart dimensions.
Does the transverse dimension of the heart accurately estimate heart weight in post-mortem examinations?
Does the transverse dimension of the heart accurately estimate heart weight in post-mortem examinations?
The transverse dimension of the heart can be used to estimate heart weight with relatively high accuracy in post-mortem examinations, which is particularly useful when the heart is fragmented.
May aid forensic heart weight estimation in fragmented specimens; leaves open validation in larger, diverse cohorts.
Heart weight is a routine measurement during a post-mortem examination. An increased heart weight is associated with preexisting heart disease and sudden cardiac death. In cases where the heart is partially fragmented, it may be hard to obtain an accurate heart weight by weighing it. If a compromised/fragmented heart size can be approximated, assessing the heart dimensions may provide a heart weight estimation. This study examined 46 fresh Caucasian adult hearts and found a high and significant correlation between heart dimensions and heart weight. Using linear regression modelling, heart weight can be estimated using only the transverse dimension (or width) of the heart with a relatively high accuracy. The established equation in estimating heart weight was heart weight (g) = −298 + 5.92 * heart width (mm), R2 = 0.71.
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Garland et al. (2023) studied this question.
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