The Investigation of Deaths Occurring During and After Invasive Medical and Surgical Procedures

Abstract

This chapter addresses the difficult subject of the post-mortem examination of an individual who has died after an invasive medical procedure. It does not cover deaths due to non-invasive interventions such as drug treatment, radiotherapy or physiotherapy. Inevitably much of the discussion centres around deaths occurring after traditional surgical operations but the same principles apply to other invasive procedures such as angiography and needle biopsy.