Immunohistochemical Study Of Haemoglobin Alpha Chain For Wounds Vitality Evaluation

摘要

Forensic pathologists usually evaluate injury vitality through the identification of red blood cells inwounded tissues. Haematoxylin and eosin stain is one of the most commonly used histological stains to do thisevaluation. Unfortunally this microscopic technique is not reliable in decomposed bodies because erythrocytesare often lysed and not recognizable.Although a lot of researches have attempted to use histological and immunohistochemical methods toanalyze the vitality of lesions of soft tissues, there is still no conclusive tools to determined whether a wound isante-mortem or post-mortem in decomposed corpses.The impossibility to recognize red blood cells in histological samples with haematoxylin and eosin staindoes not exclude the possibility to identify their specific components. In particular haemoglobin chain seem to beone of the most resistant elements to putrescence.We tested the usefulness of the immunohistochemical technique using antibodies against haemoglobinalpha chain on formalin fixed-paraffin embedded tissue sections in some cases of decomposed corpses in theaim to understand which lesions were ante-mortem and which post-mortem.We try to use it in some murdered cases that gave us some problems about vitality diagnosis of thelesions.The employment of anti-haemoglobin alpha chain antibody allowed us to validate the results ofhaematoxylin-eosin analysis and understand which lesions were really dealt to kill and which not (made as anattempt to hide the corpse or by animals).These preliminary data suggest that immunohistochemical analysis could be a useful tool indetermination of wound vitality. Additional studies are necessary to confirm our results and to propose astandardized method for all forensic cases.