The theme of our first issue of 2016 is “Postmortem Changes” and the Special Guest Editor is Dr. Jonathan Arden. Postmortem changes are of course important for both interpretation of artifacts of decomposition and for assessing postmortem interval, and we wanted to visit this topic in both some traditional and novel ways.
We begin with a discussion of a history of postmortem changes within the scientific literature up to the 19th century. We then continue with a review of the history and evolution of the use of vitreous potassium and how it was used in the past to determine postmortem interval. Changes with decomposition in bodies recovered from water are covered in another review. We also feature a review on how postmortem changes can affect the evaluation of fractures, especially regarding the ability to distinguish antemortem from postmortem fractures. Hypostatic extravasation of blood in the neck is a good example of a postmortem change that can be mistaken for an injury, and we feature an article on this phenomenon and other artifacts in the neck as well. Finally, we have a review of the appearance of postmortem changes on computed tomography scans.
We also feature several other articles, three “Case of the Month” papers, and an “Images in Forensic Pathology” article. Seven of the papers in this issue were presented at the 2015 NAME Annual Meeting!
The second issue of 2016 will be released on June 1; the theme will be “Endocrine Pathology” and the special Guest Editor will be Dr. James Gill. The endocrine system is generally not the first system we think about when approaching forensic casework, but it is certainly the basis of much natural disease. But remember, only about half of each issue is devoted to the specific theme. It's really just a way to promote submission of articles on a particular topic. Manuscripts about any topic can (and should) be submitted at any time! As always, I will continue to encourage the readership to submit articles to the Journal. We depend on submissions from the readership—NAME members like you—to sustain our excellent content.