Anti-Necrobiosis Effect of Maggot Infestation in Experimental Pig Skin: A Tool in Forensic Medicine

Abstract

Forensic examination in crime scene investigation (CSI) may involve examination of corpses from outside and exposed environment or even exhumed bodies. Analysis of necrotic tissue is often a challenging work. Though forensic entomology is helpful in determining time of death by linear regression method, this work seek to employ and advance the use of knowledge of the effect of insect larvae in comparing the pattern and nature of necrobiosis in maggot infested tissue and non-infested tissue during forensic analysis and interpretation. Twenty samples of pig skin were obtained, a good choice as a model similar to human skin, ten of which were deliberately infested with cultured larvae of  Lucilia sericata as test and the other ten allowed to undergo natural Necrobiosis without the larvae as control group, all in moist environment. The weight of each sample pig skin is taken every other day (48 hourly). The result showed a significant loss of consistency by autolysis and sloughing in non-infested pig skin more than in the infested pig skin sample and a significant of loss of weight in the two groups of sample (P<0.05). Marked acantholysis was more prominent in the non-infested pig skin than infested Pig skin on qualitative histological comparison. The study suggests that Necrobiosis in Maggot infested Tissue is much less than in Non-infested Tissue.