Citation

Krohn M, Dressler J, Bauer M, Schober K, Franke H, Ondruschka B. J. Neurotrauma 2014; 32(7): 430-440.

Affiliation

University Leipzig, Institute of Legal Medicine, Leipzig, Germany ; michaelkrohn86@googlemail.com.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2014.3524

PMID

25211554

Abstract

The availability of markers able to provide an insight in protein changes in the central nervous system after fatal traumatic brain injury (TBI) is limited. The present study reports on the semi-quantitative assessments of the immunopositive neuroglial cells (both astrocytes and oligodendrocytes) and neurons for S100 protein (S100) as well as neuronal specific enolase (NSE) in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum with regard to the survival time and the cause of death. Brain tissues of 47 autopsy cases with TBI (survival times between several minutes and 34 days) and 10 age- and gender matched controls (natural deaths) were examined. TBI cases were grouped according to their survival time in acute, subacute and delayed death after brain injury (ABI, n = 25; SBI, n = 18; DBI, n =4). There were no significant changes in the percentages of S100-stained astrocytes between TBI and control cases. The percentages of S100-positive oligodendrocytes in the pericontusional zone (PCZ) in cases with SBI were significantly lower than in controls (p < 0.05) and in ABI (p < 0.05). In the hippocampus, S100-positive oligodendrocytes were significantly lower in cases with ABI and SBI (both p < 0.05) compared to control cases. It is of particular interest that there were also S100-positive neurons in the PCZ and hippocampus in TBI cases > 2 h survival, but not in ABI cases or controls. The percentages of NSE-positive neurons in the hippocampus were likewise significantly lower in cases with ABI compared to controls (p < 0.05) but increased in cases with SBI in PCZ (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the present findings emphasize that S100 and NSE-immunopositivity might be useful for detecting the cause and process of death due to TBI. Further, S100-positivity in neurons may be helpful to estimate the survival time of fatal injuries in legal medicine.

Language: en