Usefulness of serum mast cell-specific chymase levels for postmortem diagnosis of anaphylaxis

• Published in: International journal of legal medicine Vol. 119; no. 6; pp. 331 - 334
• Main Authors: Nishio, Hajime, Takai, Shinji, Miyazaki, Mizuo, Horiuchi, Hidekazu, Osawa, Motoki, Uemura, Koichi, Yoshida, Ken-ichi, Mukaida, Masahiro, Ueno, Yasuhiro, Suzuki, Koichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Nature B.V 01.11.2005
• Subjects: Aged; Anaphylaxis; Anaphylaxis - blood; Anaphylaxis - diagnosis; Antibiotics; Autopsies; Case-Control Studies; Child, Preschool; Chymases; Female; Forensic medicine; Forensic Pathology; Heart attacks; Humans; Legal medicine; Male; Medical schools; Middle Aged; Postmortem Changes; Serine Endopeptidases - blood; Tryptases; Japan
• ISSN: 0937-9827; 1437-1596
• DOI: 10.1007/s00414-005-0524-1

Chymase, a serine protease, is stored mainly in secretory granules of human mast cells. Serum chymase concentration was examined in 8 autopsy cases with anaphylaxis as well as in 104 control cases without anaphylaxis. It was detected in all 8 cases with anaphylaxis (range 3-380 ng/ml, mean 89.8 ng/ml), while it was detected in only 2 of the 104 controls and was below a detectable level (<3 ng/ml) in the other 102. Serum tryptase levels are known to be a diagnostic indicator of anaphylaxis, therefore the relationship between serum chymase and tryptase levels was investigated in the 8 cases of anaphylactic death; a significant positive correlation was found (r=0.826, p=0.011). Furthermore, chymase was shown to be quite stable in serum. These results showed that measurement of serum chymase levels might be an additional tool for postmortem diagnosis of anaphylaxis.