[The myocardial histo-hematic barrier as a morphological criterion to be used for forensic medical diagnostics of alcoholic cardiomyopathy].

The author estimates the effectiveness of morphological diagnostics of alcoholic cardiomyopathy taking into consideration the general patterns of the structural and functional organization of the heart with special reference to myocardial histo-hematic barrier (HHB) the components of which are characterized by specific structural and functional properties and close relationships between them. It was shown that the morphological changes in the histo-hematic barrier reflect the range of variability of its morphological components and may be used as the indicators of its integrity and stability in the case of disorder. The study has demonstrated that the structural and functional degradation as well as decay of myocardial components may occur under the influence of both an ultrastrong acute impact and latent chronic intoxication or the diseases accompanied by rapid or slow persisting disintegration of the structural organization of the organ. The author maintains that the maximally high informative value of the assessment of the morphological criteria for alcoholic cardiomyopathy can be achieved with the use of special immunohistochemical methods allowing the concrete components of the biological structures to be identified and giving the exact location of the cellular and tissue components in the affected regions. Such an approach permits to detect the developing pathological changes at the molecular level with a high degree of accuracy and visualize the structural reorganization, if any, of each component of the myocardial histo-hematic barrier responsible for the lesions associated with alcoholic cardiomyopathy.