Conclusions

The G’’ of human splenic tissue is a sensitive biomechanical marker for time since death estimation. A G’’ threshold of 333 Pa provided strong confirmatory evidence for PMIs of less than 200 h. In the here investigated sample, there was no evidence that the G’, G’’, or G* of the spleen depend on age at death, spleen weight, sex, cardiac resuscitation attempts, microscopic changes of the spleen and macroscopic signs of chronic splenic congestion.

Limitations

The study was limited in sample size. Unequal group sizes reduced power for detecting omnibus effects. The high within-group variance of the data, which is common when analyzing biological samples, likely contributed to the non-significant results, especially when small to moderate effect sizes were detected. The rheological changes before 42 h remain unclear as this was the earliest time post-mortem that a sample was investigated.