Apoptosis markers including Fas and bax showed statistically significant staining in medicolegal autopsies with ≥50% coronary stenosis, aiding in the postmortem diagnosis of myocardial injury.
Observational (n=43)
Does immunohistochemical staining for apoptosis markers help in the postmortem diagnosis of myocardial injury in medicolegal autopsies?
Apoptosis markers such as TUNEL, Bcl-2, bax, Fas, and p53 may assist in the postmortem diagnosis of myocardial injury, though their low specificity requires supplementation with other methods.
The most common cause of sudden unexpected deaths is cardiovascular system diseases. Ischemic heart injuries take the biggest part in this group. Cardiac diseases such as coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction play a significant role in forensic medicine practice due to being very common and fatal. Therefore, many methods are being tried in postmortem diagnosis and reliability and validity studies are performed for these methods. In this study, we aimed to investigate the postmortem diagnostic features of apoptosis in the myocytes in myocardial injury. For this reason, apoptosis conditions were evaluated using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL), Bcl-2, Fas, and p53 immunohistochemical staining methods in the myocardial tissues of 43 medicolegal autopsies. The cases that have 75% or more stenosis in at least one of the coronary arteries and that had been diagnosed with myocardial infarction apoptosis markers are stained in a higher rate. In the cases that have 50% or more stenosis in at least one coronary artery, Fas and bax staining were found as statistically significant. Apoptosis may be helpful in diagnosing the cases with myocardial injury such as acute myocardial infarction and Bcl-2, bax, Fas, p53 markers and TUNEL staining method may be used for his purpose. We think that these methods may be insufficient due to the low specificity and suggest supporting them with other methods.
Erel et al. (Mon,) conducted a observational in Myocardial injury in medicolegal death (n=43). Apoptosis markers (TUNEL, Bcl-2, Fas, p53, bax staining) was evaluated on Postmortem diagnostic features of apoptosis in myocytes. Apoptosis markers including Fas and bax showed statistically significant staining in medicolegal autopsies with ≥50% coronary stenosis, aiding in the postmortem diagnosis of myocardial injury.