Abstract: Objective To study the postmortem stability of cTnT as well as its expression alteration,and to evaluate it in the diagnosis of early myocardial ischemia in forensic practice.Methods Animal model of early myocardial ischemia was established by rabbit coronary artery ligation.The expression of cTnT in myocardium at different postmortem intervals was detected using immunohistochemistry and analyzed using imaging technique and statistics.The results were then compared between the experimental and control groups.Results In ischemic myocardium,the expression of cTnT showed prominent focal or flaky depletion in myocardial cytoplasm with no expression detected in interstitium.The expression level showed a linear decrease with prolonged postmortem interval,and disappeared completely on day 14 after death while stored at 4℃.However,there were significant differences in the expression levels of cTnT between experimental and control groups from day 1 to day 7 after death.Conclusion Immunohistochemical detection of cTnT for diagnosis of early myocardial ischemia in corpses stored at 4℃ must be performed within 7 days after death.

Key words: forensic pathology, immunohistochemistry, cardiac troponin T, postmortem stability, early myocardial ischemia, postmortem diagnosis