Heart Attack - Remote

A Gömöri trichrome stain highlights living hearts cells in purple and scarred, healed tissue in green.

Myocardial infarctions - better knowns as "heart attacks" - result from a lack of oxygen to the heart muscle itself. Old, healed areas of infarction are visible under the microscope as fibrotic areas, largely devoid of muscle cells, and when large enough are visible to the naked eye as white-tan areas within the heart muscle.

The Gömöri trichrome stain was developed by noted Hungarian pathologist histochemist György Gömöri (1904-1957) in 1950. Like the Masson's trichrome stain, the Gömöri trichrome stain is used to examine muscle tissue, using green and purple dyes instead of blue and red.