Citation

Ondruschka B, Pohlers D, Sommer G, Schober K, Teupser D, Franke H, Dressler J. J. Neurotrauma 2013; 30(22): 1862-1871.

Affiliation

University Leipzig, Institute of Legal Medicine, Leipzig, Germany ; Benjamin.Ondruschka@medizin.uni-leipzig.de.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2013.2895

PMID

23796187

Abstract

Postmortem analysis of relevant biomarkers might aid in characterizing causes of death and survival times in legal medicine. However, there are still no sufficiently established results of practical postmortem biochemical investigations in cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI). The two biomarkers S100B and neuronal specific enolase (NSE) could be of special interest. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate changes in their postmortem levels for further determination of brain damage in TBI. In 17 cases of TBI (average age: 58 years) and in 23 controls with different causes of death (average age: 59 years), serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples were analyzed with a chemiluminescence immunoassay for marker expression. An increase in serum S100B as well as a subsequent decrease after survival times > 4 days were detected in TBI cases (p < 0.01). CSF NSE values > 6,000 ng/ml and CSF S100B levels > 10,000 ng/ml seem to indicate a TBI survival time of at least 15 minutes (p < 0.01). It will be of particular interest that CSF S100B levels (p < 0.01) and serum S100B levels (p < 0.05) as well as CSF NSE values (p < 0.01) were significantly higher in TBI cases in comparison to the controls, especially when compared to fatal non-head injuries. In conclusion, the present findings emphasize that S100B and NSE are useful markers also in postmortem biochemistry in cases of suspected TBI. Furthermore, S100B may be helpful to estimate the survival time of fatal injuries in legal medicine.

Language: en