Maternal death in pregnancy from HELLP syndrome. A report of three medico-legal autopsy cases with special reference to distinctive histopathological alterations.
Maternal death from HELLP syndrome, a complication of (pre-) eclampsia during pregnancy or postpartum, is rarely encountered in forensic pathology. We report three cases of HELLP syndrome with fatal outcome putting the main focus on the histopathological features of the disease. We found an almost identical histopathological pattern in the liver (periportal coagulation necrosis, hepatic haemorrhages sharply demarcated by an extended fibrin network from the surrounding unaffected liver parenchyma, focal leukostasis in liver sinusoids and swelling of Kupffer's cells, absence of inflammatory cellular infiltrates in liver plates, lack of fatty transformation of hepatocytes) and kidneys (bloodless glomeruli with swollen and vacuolated intracapillary cells, cigar-shaped capillary loops, enlarged glomerular tufts with herniation of capillary loops into the proximal convoluted tubules, swelling of mesangial cells) in all three cases. The histopathological alterations in the liver and kidneys can be considered characteristic for the disease and their presence may enable the forensic pathologist to establish the definite post-mortem diagnosis of HELLP syndrome in questionable cases.