Morphologic study of the post-traumatic cerebral infarction / 中国法医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe the morphologic characteristics of the post-traumatic cerebral infarction and discriminate it from brain contusion. Methods From 81 severe brain injury samples 15 were selected which met the criteria of the secondary necrosis and hemorrhage of brain. Another 15 simple brain contusion samples were selected as control. They were cut according to various requirements either coronary or saggittally or horizontally and observed grossly and histologically. Results The post-traumatic cerebral infarctions were found mainly in 5 localities basal ganglia (3 cases), cingulate gyrus (2 cases), both cuneus of the occipital lobes (2 cases), lateral occipito-temporal gyrus (6 cases, 5 of them complicated with hemorrhage in the midbrain and pons), and occipital gyrus (2 cases). All of the infarctions were located not at the point of coup or contrecoup. They were localized and had clear boundaries. All of the lesions could be traced back to be related to brain hernia. Microscopically, there were extravasation of blood, and necrosis in the infarction, and usually severe congestion and edema with white blood cells infiltration and glia cell reaction. If the lesion was in the cerebrum, it was usually located at the junction of cortex and medulla, in severe cases extended to whole thickness of the cortex and the subarachnoid space, but the pia mater was not ruptured. There were marked ischemic and hypoxia changes in the neurons. The lesions of brain contusion, on the contrary, were always ruptured. The contused brain tissue may be necrotic. Conclusion The Post-traumatic cerebral infarction is synonymous with secondary necrosis and hemorrhage of the brain. The mechanism of the infarction is compression of intra-cerebral blood vessels due to cerebral hernia. It could be differentiated from cerebral contusion by the relation with cerebral hernia, the location of the lesion, the in-tactness of the pia mater, as well as other related histological changes.