title: Usefulness of serum mast cell-specific chymase levels for postmortem diagnosis of anaphylaxis.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Legal Medicine, Osaka Medical College, Takatsuki 569-8686, Japan. leg010@art.osaka-med.ac.jp
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishio
authors.forename: Shinji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takai
authors.forename: Mizuo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miyazaki
authors.forename: Hidekazu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Horiuchi
authors.forename: Motoki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Osawa
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Uemura
authors.forename: Ken-ichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mukaida
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ueno
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Suzuki
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000707:Anaphylaxis / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002675:Child, Preschool; D053818:Chymases; D005260:Female; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D012697:Serine Endopeptidases / Q000097:blood*; D053802:Tryptases
chemical_list: D012697:Serine Endopeptidases; D053818:Chymases; D053802:Tryptases
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