Original Articles

The clinical autopsy is gradually becoming extinct due to the fear of litigations by clinicians who feel threatened by possible worrisome revelations through the autopsy. The aim of this study was to assess the most important components of clinical autopsies, as yardstick for assessing quality clinical practice. A retrospective review of documentations in clinical autopsy reports of 75 full post-mortem dissections were conducted....

Pre-analytic steps are important for the immunohistochemical study as in the case of breast cancers. The initial process is the fixation in which the 10% neutral buffered formalin (NBF) is recommended. 10% formalin is less expensive and easier to prepare but its effect on the immunostaining is controversial....

Hanging is the most popular method of suicide. Several different mechanisms are explained how death after hanging occurs, including direct injury to the thyroid gland. This study aimed to determine the possibility of death associated with acute excess levels of thyroid hormones in the deceased body by hanging and to find the correlation of thyroid hormone levels and various factors associated with that body. ...

The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is a commonly performed laboratory test for screening and monitoring the inflammatory, infectious, autoimmune and cancerous diseases. There are several methods for measuring the ESR, but the gold standard method is the Westergren method which is time-consuming and requires a large volume of blood sample....

Human variations in the X chromosome are useful tools in studying human genetic diversity and individual identification. Five X chromosomal short tandem repeats (X-STRs) multiplex system (DXS8378, DXS101, HPRTB, DXS8377 and DXS10011) were amplified in one single polymerase chain reaction. ...

Angiopoietin 1 (Angpt1) and Angiopoietin 2 (Angpt2) are vascular growth factors that play important roles in vascular angiogenesis and adult vasculature maintenance. Previous studies reported that Angpt1 reduced the size of myocardial infarction in in vivo myocardial infarction experiment in rats, while Angpt2  protein levels increased in myocardial infarction areas. ...

Lutein is a carotenoid found in the lens of the human eyes. Its functions are to protect the eyes by filtering a hazard blue light and to prevent vision loss due to cataract formation. Lutein could not be synthesised in the body and must be taken from the diet, however, lutein is isolated from a marigold flower....

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease. There is a high degree of diversity between and within tumours as well as among cancer-bearing individuals, and all of these factors together determine the risk of disease progression and therapeutic resistance....

Lupus nephritis (LN) is one of a major complication of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Ten percent of patients with LN will develop end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Renal biopsy is the gold standard for diagnosis of LN and evaluate activity and chronicity of disease to predict renal function outcome....

The post-mortem examination is a hospital service necessary to diagnose the cause and circumstances surrounding patients' death. This study assessed the knowledge, attitude and practices of physicians towards autopsy. Descriptive cross-sectional study of physicians that completed a semi-structured questionnaire assessing their knowledge...