Abstract
Liver function tests have been investigated in the forensic setting in several biological fluids collected at autopsy. Nevertheless, the results of these investigations have provided diverging information on postmortem stability of liver function markers and postmortem reliability of liver function assessment. The first aim of this study was to determine gamma-glutamyltransferase, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin, total proteins, and albumin in antemortem and postmortem serum samples in a series of cases that underwent forensic investigations and had both samples available. The second aim was to measure the same molecules in cerebrospinal fluid. Preliminary results indicated that femoral (and cardiac) blood postmortem serum concentrations of bilirubin, total proteins, and albumin, as well as femoral blood postmortem serum concentrations of gamma-glutamyltransferase, can be considered to reliably reflect antemortem serum concentrations, thus suggesting that postmortem values could be used as surrogates for antemortem levels. Conversely, alanine aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase and bilirubin levels in cerebrospinal fluid stored in both preservative-free and sodium fluoride tubes are of no value to estimate their antemortem serum concentrations, irrespective of liver disease severity found at autopsy.