The relevance of the detection of troponins to the forensic diagnosis of cardiac contusion

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Jan Peter - , Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus (Author)
  • Andreas Kirchner - , Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus (Author)
  • Eberhard Kuhlisch - , Institute for Medical Informatics and Biometry (Author)
  • Mario Menschikowski - , Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (Author)
  • Bernhard Neef - , Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus (Author)
  • Jan Dreßler - , Institute of Forensic Medicine (Author)

Abstract

The forensic diagnosis of cardiac contusion has hitherto been based mainly on anamnesis, concomitant thoracic injuries and the detection of macroscopic changes to the heart. Parallel histological and serological investigations of the heart-specific troponins have been conducted with varying results. This paper aims to show whether heart-specific troponins are suitable as a means of securing the diagnosis in proven cases of cardiac contusion and of determining which of the three heart-specific troponins cTnT, cTnI and cTnC are most significant in serology and histology for postmortem diagnosis. In the study, 25 cases of known cardiac contusion and 11 controls without vital myocardial trauma taken from autopsy material were prospectively investigated. Investigation of the venous serum revealed significant differences in the concentrations of the case and control groups for troponin T (mean value 5.5056 versus 0.4982; p = 0.014), for troponin C (mean value 263.9280 versus 68.5640; p = 0.001) and for troponin I (mean value 1404.0560 versus 36.1650; p = 0.003). In histology there are also significantly different depletions between the groups investigated (cTnT: p = 0.002; cTnC: p = 0.003; cTnI: p < 0.001) taking into account the autolysis time.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)127-133
Number of pages7
JournalForensic science international
Volume160
Issue number2-3
Publication statusPublished - 13 Jul 2006
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 16269219

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Contusio cordis, ELISA Troponine T, I, C, Immunohistochemistry