[Coagulative myocytolysis and its outcome in homicide victims. Reflexions on its relative psychologic meaning]

This research has been justified by the recent acquisitions about the pathogenic role that stress may play on myocardium, not only through the involvement of coronary vessels, but even through an action directed on the muscle fibres, which results in a coagulative myocytolysis with consequent fibrosis. The Author intended to verify the incidence of the above said cardiopathy, evaluating it with respect to the suprarenal glands changes, in the victims for homicide, mostly belonging to the criminal subculture of the province of Reggio Calabria. The choice of such a casuitic is based on the fact that the suprarenal glands study, carried out by the same Author on the above said victims since 1958 till today, has allowed to point out, excluding the cases of people accidentally involved in the crime (the so-called "innocent victims", typical morphological changes including all degrees of stress (acute, subacute or chronic), with the prevalence of those typical changes occurring in subacute or chronic forms, chiefly in the medullar gland. The research was carried out on the casuistic from two periods: 1st group: 1958-1975 (61 cases, 53 males, aged 10 to 73, mostly killed with fire-arms); 2nd group: November 1989-October 1990 (52 cases, almost exclusively males, aged 17 to 66, 51 of which killed with fire-arms, and one with a knife). The results are the following: 1) In the first group: a) 32 cases showed the presence of myocardial fibrosis striae, for the most part very thin, wavy and parallel to the myocytes; b) all the cases showed a hypercontracted aspect of the myocytes; c) 10 cases, belonging to the 32 cases with fibrosis, showed signs of acute myocytolysis; d) 13 cases showed mild signs of intimal fibrosis in the coronary arteries; e) 48 cases showed signs of subacute or chronic functional hyperactivity of the suprarenal glands, either in the medullar or in the cortical gland, often with signs of acute superstimulation; f) 12 cases showed exclusively signs of acute stimulation of the same glands; g) one case (innocent victim), showed suprarenal glands of normal aspect.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)