Myocardial infarction ; Diagnosis ; Postmortem changes ; Troponin I
Abstract
Acute myocardial infarction is one of the most common causes of unexpected
deaths, but there are limitations to its diagnosis in postmortem inspection. In
this study, we aimed to investigate the usefulness of cardiac marker analysis
for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction in postmortem inspection.
This study was conducted on 30 postmortem inspection cases conducted by
the National Forensic Service from 2016 to 2018. Tests for three myocardial
enzymes (myoglobin, creatinine kinase-MB, and cardiac troponin I) were
performed in each case, and the relationships between enzyme levels, cause
of death, and factors affecting the postmortem tests were analyzed. Cardiac
enzyme concentrations were not significantly different between the heart
disease group and other disease groups, and the false-positive rate was
increased due to postmortem changes. Therefore, we can conclude that it
is not appropriate to use cardiac enzyme analysis for the diagnosis of acute
myocardial infarction in postmortem inspection.