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Abstract

Forensic Science & Addiction Research

Dating of Traumatic Brain Injury in Forensic Cases Using Immunohistochemical Markers (II): Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein and CD68

  • Open or CloseRomero Tirado MA2*, Blanco Pampin JM2, Gallego Gómez R1, García-Caballero L3 and Varela Gómez M2

    1Department of Morphological Sciences, Medicine College, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    2Department of Forensic Pathology, Institute of Legal Medicine of Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    3Department of surgery and medical-surgical specialities, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    *Corresponding author: Romero Tirado MA, Department of Forensic Pathology, Institute of Legal Medicine of Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Submission: June 02, 2022;Published: June 13, 2022

DOI: 10.31031/FSAR.2022.05.000628

ISSN: 2578-0042
Volume5 Issue5

Abstract

Studies about head trauma are experimental or have either a clinical or a prognosis purpose. In this study human samples from autopsies are used with the purpose of answering medical-legal questions. Four experimental groups with a total of twenty-one individuals and a control group of four individuals were studied. Samples were obtained from the injured area of each individual, fixed in 10% formalin during 24 hours and preserved in 70% ethanol. Each experimental group was then compared to the control group using statistical analysis after cell count to diagnose hyperplasia. Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (GFPA) shows some processes that take place after the injury and their sequence: blood brain barrier (BBB) begins to change two hours postinjury, hypertrophic astrocytes are present twelve hours postinjury, hyperplasia and the different types of BBB reactions start twenty hours postinjury, astrocytes arrange geographically and hyperplasia reaches its peak on day seventeen, and finally, on day thirty, astrocytes begin to return to their normal morphology and constitutes the scar. Hyperplasia doesn’t return to basal levels for months or even years. CD68 shows that macrophages begin to migrate almost immediately. It also shows that a restrained microgliosis begins on the second hour postinjury. These two processes reach their peak between days 17 and 20 postinjury, at the same location where astrogliosis reaches its peak.

These changes could be used to approximate the date of trauma distinguishing between long survival cases from those whose death was immediate.

Keywords: Traumatic brain injury; Immunohistochemistry; Axonal injury

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