• Dong-Ri Li, Tomomi Michiue, Bao-Li Zhu, Takaki Ishikawa, Li Quan, Dong Zhao, Chiemi Yoshida, Jian-Hua Chen, Qi Wang, Ayumi Komatsu, Yoko Azuma, and Hitoshi Maeda.
• Department of Legal Medicine, Osaka City University Medical School, Asahi-machi 1-4-3, Abeno, 545-8585 Osaka, Japan.
• Leg Med (Tokyo). 2009 Apr 1;11 Suppl 1:S273-5.

AbstractPrevious studies have suggested the usefulness of the postmortem serum S100B level as a marker of the severity of brain damage. In this study, we investigated the S100B level in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in serial autopsy cases (n=216, within 3 days postmortem), including those of blunt injury (n=34: fatal head injury, n=20; others, n=14), sharp instrument injury (n=9), mechanical asphyxiation (n=19), drowning (n=11), fire fatality (n=26), intoxication (n=20), hypothermia (cold exposure, n=16), hyperthermia (heat stroke, n=9), acute cardiac death (n=52) and pneumonia (n=20). The CSF S100B level showed a moderate postmortem time-dependent increase for acute cardiac death (r=0.58, p<0.0001) and asphyxia (r=0.741, p<0.001). In cases of survival time within 48 h, drowning and hypothermia usually showed a lower CSF S100B level (around 500 ng/ml), and the level was higher for delayed head injury death, asphyxia, intoxication, and hyperthermia (around 1500 ng/ml) (p<0.05). In fatal head injury cases, however, CSF S100B did not correlate with the survival time or postmortem interval. A CSF S100B level of >2000 ng/ml in the early postmortem period might be considered a biochemical sign of fatally severe brain damage.

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