Demographic Profile and Patterns of Cause of Death in Unknown Dead Bodies - A Three-Year Study in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Unknown dead bodies are those dead bodies in which identity not determined till the examination and reporting. It is a great challenge for both police and autopsy surgeons in establishing the identity of these bodies. Aims: To describe the demographic and medico-legal profile of unknown dead bodies examined in a Tertiary Care Hospital over a three-year period and to identify the patterns and cause of death in these cases. Methods: Unknown dead bodies brought for autopsies in the year 2022, 2023 and 2024 comprised the materials and the data were collected from the postmortem records Results: Out of total 5726 dead bodies brought for medico legal autopsy in three years (2022, 2023, 2024), we conducted 455(7.94%) unknown dead bodies examination in which 388 cases (85.30%) were male, female cases numbered 67 (14.70%). Maximum number of 125(27.47%) cases seen in age group 51-60 years, out of which 106(23.30%) were male and 19(4.17%) cases were female. Followed by age group 41-50 years in which 95(20.88%) cases seen out of which 79(17.36%) were male and 16 (3.52%) were female. Seasonal variation seen in our study, maximum cases in winter 199 (43.74%) followed by summer 145(31.86%) and least in monsoon season 111(24.40%) death due to natural cause outnumbered a maximum of 270 (59.34%) of which death by myocardial infarction was higher with 189 (41.54%) cases followed by cerebrovascular accident 45 cases (9.89%). Conclusion: In spite of digitalization of the world with advanced technologies, fixing of identity is still a challenge because of lack of documenting data related to identification during life. Key words: Unknown, Mortuary, Autopsy, Seasonal variation, Injuries, Asphyxia, Pathology, Poisoning.