Postmortem Imaging as an Alternative to Autopsy

Can advanced imaging serve as an alternative to full autopsy in determining the cause of unexpected death? Prompted by religious and other objections to autopsy and to an organ harvesting scandal in the 1990s, British investigators randomly selected 182 adult cases referred to coroners in two cities during a 2-year period. For each case, whole-body postmortem computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies were obtained prior to full autopsy. Two pairs of radiologists independently interpreted the CT and MRI studies, respectively. Each pair produced a consensus report based on a single imaging modality, and all four radiologists produced a final consensus report based on both modalities. Reports identified cause of dea…