Immunohistochemical study of fibronectin for postmortem diagnosis of early myocardial infarction

The postmortem diagnosis of early myocardial infarction has been a puzzling problem in forensic practice. In the present study, an immunohistochemical study of fibronectin (FN) was performed for the first time on 34 autopsy hearts to determine early myocardial infarction with streptavidin/biotin/per...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Forensic science international 1996-04, Vol.78 (3), p.209-217
Main Authors: Hu, Bing-Jie, Chen, Yu-Chuan, Zhu, Jia-Zhen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Cardiology. Vascular system
Cardiomyocytes
Coronary heart disease
Female
Fibronectin
Fibronectins - analysis
Forensic Medicine
Heart
Humans
Immunohistochemistry
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial Infarction - diagnosis
Myocardium - chemistry
Sensitivity and Specificity
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Summary:The postmortem diagnosis of early myocardial infarction has been a puzzling problem in forensic practice. In the present study, an immunohistochemical study of fibronectin (FN) was performed for the first time on 34 autopsy hearts to determine early myocardial infarction with streptavidin/biotin/peroxidase technique. Five cases of definite myocardial infarction showed positive FN staining of cardiomyocytes; of 18 cases where early myocardial infarction was suspected, positive FN staining of cardiomyocytes was found in 15 cases, but no such staining was seen in 11 non-cardiac death controls. The results led to the conclusion that positive FN staining in cardiomyocytes is a reliable marker of acute myocardial infarction and could be used as a new, sensitive method for the postmortem diagnosis of early myocardial infarction. It is worth noting that all cases in this study were autopsied between 8 h and 4 days after death and 5 cases had been fixed in 10% formalin for over 10 years. FN immunohistochemistry still gave satisfactory results in those cases. It seemed that FN was not affected by postmortem autolysis and formalin-fixation and could be used in routine forensic practice, especially for retrospective analysis of cases.
ISSN:0379-0738
1872-6283
DOI:10.1016/0379-0738(96)01891-9