Phd in ADVANCES IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES, MICROBIOLOGY, LEGAL
MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH SCIENCES

Thesis title: VIMENTIN AND p53 IMMUNOREACTIVITY IN CASES OF TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the main causes of death in Trauma Pathology. The first question is if the brain lesions are the cause of death. Once evaluated the causality relationship between the brain damage and the death, the second most important question is how long has been past from the TBI and the death. In other words, depending on the case, it could be fundamental to the Judicial interpretation of a case to understand if there is a trauma-death interval and how long it is. In the attempt of highlight this topic, my research group has evaluated different biological markers that may be used in the post-mortem TBI diagnosis and trauma-death interval determination. In this study, the use of anti-p53 and anti-vimentin antibodies for immunohistochemical analysis of post-mortem brain samples from TBI cases is presented. The autopsy databases of the Legal Medicine and Forensic Institutes of the “Sapienza” University of Roma was retrospectively reviewed in order to identify cases of TBI.12 cases of TBI deaths were selected, while other 12 non traumatic cases were selected as controls. The brain samples were stained with immunohistochemical staining with anti-vimentin and anti-p53 antibodies. Then, a sami-quantitative analysis of the immunoreaction was performed. The results of our study demonstrate that vimentin and p-53 could be used to confirm the diagnosis of TBI. Moreover, vimentin immunoreaction showed a correlation with the time between the trauma and the death, suggesting this marker could be used in the timing of the TBI.