Cutting-edge technology could mean no cutting at all for some autopsies.
Maryland radiologists are looking into the use of computed tomography and powerful imaging software to speed up autopsies.
“CT is a sensitive imaging tool for detecting injuries and cause of death in victims of blunt trauma,” said Dr. Barry Daly, professor of radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “When there are major injuries, such as those resulting from a motor vehicle accident, CT may provide enough information to avoid a conventional autopsy altogether.”
All states are required by law to perform an autopsy in sudden and unexplained deaths. Maryland?s chief medical examiner handled 8,000 such deaths last year. About half required a full autopsy, according to the examiner?s office.
Daly and Maryland?s medical examiners presented their findings Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Scanning the body holds many benefits over the scalpel.
In cases of suspicious death, the noninvasive procedure will not damage or destroy key forensic evidence, as can happen during a conventional autopsy, according to the study. In addition, CT can be used in situations in which an autopsy might be prohibited by religious or cultural beliefs.
Scanning is cheaper and takes a fraction of the time. The average full autopsy can take four hours, while multidetector CT scanning and interpretation wraps up in about 30 minutes.
Daly?s study team performed 20 autopsies by scanner at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Interpretations by two radiologists were compared with the results of a conventional autopsy performed by state forensic medical examiners. The cases included 14 victims of blunt trauma and six victims of a penetrating wound made either by a knife or bullet.
In all 14 blunt trauma cases and five of the six penetrating-wound cases, CT accurately revealed the cause of death. In addition, scanning rapidly pinpointed all 26 major bullet fragments recovered during conventional autopsy.
Not all autopsies can be performed by scanner, Daly said, but “performing CT imaging first may speed up a conventional autopsy, especially when it comes to locating ballistic fragments, which are so important to criminal investigations.”
