Usefulness of a latex agglutination assay for FDP D-dimer to demonstrate the presence of postmortem blood

Abstract

D-dimer, a specific fragment resulting from degradation of cross-linked fibrin, is an essential marker for the diagnosis of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). Rapid assay for D-dimer using monoclonal antibody coated-latex particles might be useful for discriminating between postmortem and antemortem blood in bloodstains. We tried to detect D-dimer in nine postmortem blood samples by the rapid latex agglutination assay and to quantify them automatically using the latex photometric immunoassay system. The results showed that all samples were positive and that their amounts of D-dimer were 335-2,800 microg/ml (the normal blood level, <1 microg/ml; the pathogenic blood level with DIC, 1-100 microg/ml). Next, nine stains made of postmortem blood were examined by the rapid latex agglutination assay. The result showed that only one case (D-dimer 335 microg/ml blood) showed weak positive while the others (D-dimer 600-2,800 microg/ml blood) were positive. The present study indicates that the latex agglutination assay for D-dimer can be useful to demonstrate the presence of postmortem blood.

Forensic differentiation between peripheral and menstrual blood in cases of alleged sexual assault—validating an immunochromatographic multiplex assay for simultaneous detection of human hemoglobin and D-dimer

“…In unclear cases, a reference sample should therefore be tested to avoid misinterpretation of a positive test result for menstrual fluid. Moreover, D-dimer levels have shown to rise in postmortem samples [ 18 ], which was confirmed in our study with 70% of the postmortem blood samples giving a light to strong positive result for D-dimer presence. This should be kept in mind as a possible source of false positivity when postmortem samples need to be assessed.…”

“…In turn, this results in the accumulation of lactic acid, initiating a fall in pH postmortem. The plasma pH decrease is noteworthy because it is believed to introduce fibrinolysis, and therefore, the formation of D-dimers [ 18 , 20 ]. Consequently, care must be taken when postmortem blood samples need to be assessed.…”

“…In addition to the validation samples, postmortem samples were tested for possible false-positive results due to potential postmortem fibrinolysis [ 14 , 18 ]. For this, peripheral blood from deceased ( n = 10) was applied to cotton swabs during medicolegal autopsy and air-dried at RT for 4 weeks prior to testing.…”

Current Methods for Body Fluid Identification Related to Sexual Crime: Focusing on Saliva, Semen, and Vaginal Fluid

“…Accordingly, it is actively used in criminal investigations. Clarification of whether the sample concerns menstrual blood [13][14][15][16][17], maternal blood [18][19][20], fetal blood [21,22], or postmortem blood [15,23] is also often required, and this identification is performed through assays that target proteins or expressed genes that are characteristic of each blood type.…”

Comparison of laser and mercury-arc lamp for the detection of body fluids on different substrates

“…Due to the different filters and goggles that have to be selected for different traces, the Lumatec Superlite 400 facilitates a preliminary rough valuation of the kind of the body fluids but therefore requires several successive examinations. However, one has to keep in mind that both methods are only unspecific approaches that just offer a presumptive test for body fluids and cannot replace modern specific test procedures [3][4][5][6].…”