Histochemical and immunohistochemical evaluation of right ventricular adipose tissue in medicolegal outopsies

ABSTRACT Sudden-Unexpected-Suspected deaths are one of the major interests of the Forensic Medicine and most of them are apparent natural caused deaths. Cardiac pathologies are mostly responsible of the deaths. Arrhytmogenic Right Ventricular Displasia (ARVD) or Arrhytmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC) have been recently recognized as an important cause of arrhytmic sudden death in young people. Morphological diagnosis still remains obscure. This study has been planned to understand the components of the adipose and/or fibro-adipose replacement which have been noticed in daily routine autopsies. In this study 32 medicolegal autopsy cases below 30 years of ages were randomly selected. Right ventricle myocardial samples were stained with Hematoxylen&Eosin, PAS, Van Gieson, Masson's Trichrome and Lieb's amyloid histochemically, while S-100, Myosin, Desmin and Actin monoclonal antibodies were studied immunoenzymatically. The percentage relative to adipose and/or fibroadipose tissue expressed, scored as GradeO to III. Void deposit have been noticed. Actin showed endothelial staining of the vessels, while the others were negative. The pathognomonic morphological findings for ARVD as described in previous studies, are noticed in this serial. However those were randomly selected autopsy cases. Therefore diagnosis for ARVD with the seldom morphology should be considered carefully. Autopsy serials may help to identify the components of the right ventricle and the ARVD morphology. XKEYWORDS Arrhytmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia, Arrhytmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy, Forensic Pathology, Histochemistry, Immunohistochemistry. * This study had been supported by Çukurova University Research Foundation XI