ArticleForensic science, medicine, and pathology2021
Comparison of conventional autopsy with post-mortem magnetic resonance, computed tomography in determining the cause of unexplained death.
Article in Forensic science, medicine, and pathology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Current Practices in Postmortem Investigation of Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy.Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992) · 2026Article
- Diagnostic accuracy of unenhanced post-mortem CT and MRI compared to the non-forensic clinical autopsy: a prospective blinded study.Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology · 2026Article
- Postmortem diagnostics in sudden unexpected death in infants and children: use and utility.European journal of pediatrics · 2025Observational
- Enhanced autopsy triage (EA-Triage) in drug-related deaths: integrating quick toxicological analysis and postmortem computed tomography.Forensic science, medicine, and pathology · 2025Article
- Post-mortem Cardiac MRI in Sudden Cardiac Death: The Interesting Intertwining of Radiology and Histology to Diagnose Arrhythmic Death or Myocardial Infarction.Current medical imaging · 2025Article
- Automated detection of fatal cerebral haemorrhage in postmortem CT data.International journal of legal medicine · 2024Article
- How much does a forensic autopsy cost in Spain?Forensic science, medicine, and pathology · 2023Article
- Sudden Cardiac Death and Ex-Situ Post-Mortem Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Morphological Study Based on Diagnostic Correlation Methodology.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Cooperation effects of radiation and ferroptosis on tumor suppression and radiation injury.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Review
- Postmortem computed tomography differentiation between intraperitoneal decomposition gas and pneumoperitoneum.International journal of legal medicine · 2022Article
- Translational deep phenotyping of deaths related to the COVID-19 pandemic: protocol for a prospective observational autopsy study.BMJ open · 2021Observational
- Post-mortem cardiac magnetic resonance parameters in normal and diseased conditions.Cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Conventional autopsy is the gold standard for identifying unexplained death but due to declines in referrals, there is an emerging role for post-mortem imaging. We evaluated whether post-mortem magnetic resonance (PMMR) and computed tomography (PMCT) are inferior to conventional autopsy. Deceased individuals ≥ 2 years old with unexplained death referred for coronial investigation between October 2014 to December 2016 underwent PMCT and PMMR prior to conventional autopsy. Images were reported separately and then compared to the autopsy findings by independent and blinded investigators. Outcomes included the accuracy of imaging modalities to identify an organ system cause of death and other significant abnormalities. Sixty-nine individuals underwent post-mortem scanning and autopsy (50 males; 73%) with a median age of 61 years (IQR 50-73) and median time from death to imaging of 2 days (IQR 2-3). With autopsy, 48 (70%) had an organ system cause of death and were included in assessing primary outcome while the remaining 21 (30%) were only included in assessing secondary outcome; 12 (17%) had a non-structural cause and 9 (13%) had no identifiable cause. PMMR and PMCT identified the cause of death in 58% (28/48) of cases; 50% (24/48) for PMMR and 35% (17/48) for PMCT. The sensitivity and specificity were 57% and 57% for PMMR and 38% and 73% for PMCT. Both PMMR and PMCT identified 61% (57/94) of other significant abnormalities. Post-mortem imaging is inferior to autopsy but when reported by experienced clinicians, PMMR provides important information for cardiac and neurological deaths while PMCT is beneficial for neurological, traumatic and gastrointestinal deaths.
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