Abstract
The medical autopsy (also called hospital or clinical autopsy) is a highly specialised medical procedure, which requires professional expertise and suitably equipped facilities. To ensure high standards of performance, the Working Group of Autopsy Pathology of the European Society of Pathology (ESP) suggests a code of practice as a minimum standard for centres performing medical autopsies. The proposed standards exclusively address autopsies in adults, and not forensic autopsies, perinatal/or paediatric examinations. Minimum standards for organisation, standard of premises, and staffing conditions, as well as minimum requirements for level of expertise of the postmortem performing specialists, documentation, and turnaround times of the medical procedure, are presented. Medical autopsies should be performed by specialists in pathology, or by trainees under the supervision of such specialists. To maintain the required level of expertise, autopsies should be performed regularly and in a number that ensures the maintenance of good practice of all participating physicians. A minimum number of autopsies per dedicated pathologist in a centre should be at least 50, or as an average, at least one autopsy per working week. Forensic autopsies, but not paediatric/perinatal autopsies may be included in this number. Turnaround time for final reports should not exceed 3 weeks (14 working days) for autopsies without fixation of brain/spinal cord or other time-consuming additional examinations, and 6 weeks (30 working days) for those with fixation of brain/spinal cord or additional examinations.
Highlights
The medical autopsy is a postmortem external and internal examination of the human body, performed with the intention of identifying or confirming cause of death and underlying diseases
The medical autopsy is of major importance for bereavement follow-up, quality assurance of clinico-medical practice, monitoring of diseases and treatments, cause of death statistics and public health monitoring, rehearsal of medical procedures, education of medical students and other types of health personnel, and for research purposes
There is the lack of interest in performing postmortem examinations from the pathologists themselves, who are overburdened by the daily diagnostic routine [3, 9]
Summary
Code of practice for medical autopsies: a minimum standard position paper for pathology departments performing medical (hospital) autopsies in adults. G. Cecilie Alfsen1,2 · Jacek Gulczyński3 · Ivana Kholová4 · Bart Latten5,6 · Javier Martinez7 · Myriam Metzger8 · Katarzyna Michaud9,10 · Carlos M. Pontinha11 · Natalia Rakislova12 · Samuel Rotman13 · Zsuzsanna Varga14 · Katharina Wassilew15 · Vsevolod Zinserling16 · on behalf of Working group Autopsy Pathology, European Society of Pathology
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