ABSTRACT

One of the most significant reasons of death or extended ne-urological deficits in the persons suffering head trauma of dif-fering levels is the diffuse axonal damage (DAD). In autopsy ca-ses, DAD diagnosis could be possible on the samples to be ta-ken from suitable parts of the brain, by microscopic examina-tion of the sections stained with Hematoxyline Eosin. But, in the posttraumatic period, in the cases who lived for a very short time, since the morphological findings of the damage has not fully formed, it is difficult to diagnose DAD. fi-APP plays an important role in such cases for diagnosing DAD. Its most evident superiorities are its reflection of the loss which took place while alive, it marks only damaged axons and it is not inf-luenced by the postmortem interval. The aim of this study is to review the morphological findings associated with mecha-nism of development of DAD, to stress the importance and role of fi-APP in the evaluation of the cases with a history of he-ad trauma.