A review of georgia SIDS autopsy reports for a 2-year period

Procedures carried out in autosies of presumed sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) victims in Georgia during 1983-1984 were compared to standard criteria found in the literature and in a Georgia publication. One hundred fifty-one complete autopsy reports were available for the study. Although autopsies did not change the presumed cause of death for most SIDS victims, less than half the autopsies included what some experts believe to be an adequate basis for determining SIDS as the cause of death--a careful medical history, a thorough external and internal examination, selected histologic review, total body X-ray, and (perhaps) cultures of heart, blood, and lung tissue. The autopsies compared more favorably to a published Georgia standard that did not include the medical history, but they still over-utilized toxicology screening, underutilized microscopic study, and rarely recorded any rationale for performing ancillary procedures.