Abstract

JIMENEZ, Isabel Arce et al. Implicaciones médico legales del Quimerismo. Med. leg. Costa Rica [online]. 2015, vol.32, n.1, pp.102-108. ISSN 2215-5287.

Recent advances in biomedical technologies are able to clarify today’s complex cases that are faced by Legal Medicine; allowing this branch of medicine to exercise justice based in scientific evidence. But what happens when an obstacle such as chimerism is present and may lead to false decisions? Although this phenomenon was thought to be inexistent, interesting cases have been reported. Chimerism is defined as the presence of different cell linings in a unique organism. This phenomenon has important implication in Legal Medicine, especially in criminal investigation. For example, in a crime scene the samples gathered may present different DNA and lead to misinterpretation of the information. On the other hand, paternity tests are also implicated in the presence of a chimera since it may originate a false negative result. The purpose of this review is to describe different Legal Medicine’s implications linked to chimerism and propose possible solutions to the conflicts that may arouse from a case of a chimera.

Keywords : Chimerism; mosaicism; DNA.

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