Abstract: Objective To analyze the forensic pathological characteristics of sudden death caused by pulmonary thromboembolism and the chronological transformation of thrombus and explore the assessment method of the causal relationship between previous trauma and the following fatal PTE episode.Methods All the 23 cases reviewed here were collected from our institute files from the year of 1998 to 2008.Results Trauma,surgery and braking etc.were all risky factors of PTE.Of these cases,12 cases were caused by trauma,21 cases were caused by surgery and 22 cases died in hospitals which were often happened one or two weeks after injury or one week’s postoperative time.Of all the cases,6 cases had single attack of throm-bus and the rest 17 cases had the recurrence of thrombus.The number of the leg deep vein to be the embolic source was 16 cases which were often seen in the left leg.Conclusion It is important to confirm the embolic source,trauma,surgery and chronological events in determing the sudden death with PTE.

Key words: forensic pathology, death, sudden, pulmonary embolism, trauma