The verification of acute and lethal
myocardial infarctions remains a crucial problem in the daily routine work of legal medicine. In order to enhance the possibilities in micromorphologic diagnostics, we investigated if
dityrosine as a
protein product of oxidative stress can be detected in myocardial tissue after an
infarction and, if so, if it occurs early enough to be used in the diagnosis of
infarctions with a short survival time. We examined tissue samples from 61 autopsy cases (37 male, 24 female) with verified or suspected
infarctions as well as 11 control cases (7 male, 4 female). Immunohistochemical staining was performed for
dityrosine and the established markers
fibronectin and
C5b-9. Positive staining for
dityrosine was obtained in nearly all cases with
infarctions aged 4 h to 2 weeks. Single positive results were obtained in cases with older (up to 2 months) or assumedly very fresh (up to 4 h)
infarctions. Furthermore, single positive results with a different staining pattern were obtained in the control group. We concluded that
dityrosine as a marker of oxidative stress can be detected after
infarctions and might occur early enough to be helpful in the diagnosis of
infarctions with a short survival time. Though
dityrosine does not seem to be specific for
infarctions, the different staining patterns enable a differentiation.