Ante-Mortem Myiasis
Definition
Infestation of a living person, which can make insect development begin before death. Their developmental age may then exceed the period elapsed after death. This possibility must be assessed from clinical, specimen and case evidence.
- Context
- Living-host infestation
For example, larvae documented in a wound before a patient died cannot be treated as though their entire development began after death.
It is one reason an insect-age estimate is not an unconditional minimum postmortem interval.
Related terms
- Accumulated Degree Hours (ADH)
- Accumulated temperature-time above a defined developmental threshold, expressed in degree-hours under a specified model. In a fictional linear model with a base...
- Colonisation Wave
- A descriptive ecological pattern, not a fixed universal series of predictable arrival intervals. Succession describes changes in organisms associated with a resource....
- Developmental Endpoint
- The defined stage or measurement to which a modelled interval refers. An endpoint specifies what event or condition the estimate reaches, such...
- Entomotoxicology
- Analysis of substances in insect matrices and possible developmental effects, without automatic reconstruction of human blood concentrations. Validated tests can detect particular...
- Microclimate
- Local conditions experienced by the insects, which may differ from station records and change over time. Conditions at the insect’s location can...
- Minimum Elapsed Interval
- A supported lower bound on duration, conditional on the method and case assumptions. A supported lower bound on elapsed time places the...
- Minimum PMI (PMImin)
- A conditional lower bound on elapsed time after death; on a calendar it supports a latest possible earlier event under stated assumptions....
- Post-Mortem Interval
- Elapsed time between death and a specified examination or reference point. State that endpoint explicitly when comparing methods. Insect age, time since...
- Post-Mortem Interval (PMI)
- Elapsed time between death and a specified later reference event. State that endpoint explicitly when comparing methods. Insect age, time since discovery...
- Sensitivity Analysis
- Assessment of output changes under justified changes in model inputs or assumptions. Sensitivity analysis examines how a result changes when specified inputs...