The Practicality of Post-mortem Imaging in Prenatal, Perinatal, and Pediatric Cases

The essential role of the autopsy is seen in its contributions to medical care, scientific research, and family counseling. Major contributions are also noted in forensic pathology as a means to determine cause-of-death for legal and medical experts. However, autopsy acceptance rates are quite low due to an array of reasons including delayed burials, faith, and moral burdening. Thus, non-invasive post-mortem imaging strategies are becoming increasingly popular. The objective of this literature review is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of numerous post-mortem imaging modalities and consider their benefits over the traditional autopsy. The need for expertise in image interpretation for pediatric and perinatal cases is also discussed. A variety of publications, totaling 32 pieces, were selected from available literature on the basis of relevance. These articles studied various perinatal and pediatric post-mortem imaging strategies and their applications in clinical practice. Key strategies include post-mortem MRI, post-mortem CT, fetal post-mortem sonography, post-mortem computed tomographic angiography, and three-dimensional surface scanning. There is a general consensus that no standard model for post-mortem imaging currently exists in the United States and European countries. Amongst the imaging modems studied, post-mortem MRI has been acknowledged to show the greatest promise in diagnostic accuracy for fetal age groups. Most studies demonstrated that post-mortem CT had limited use for autopsy. Post-mortem imaging strategies for autopsy have high potential given their minimal invasiveness and increasing popularity. Furthermore, it is vital to crafting a global standard procedure for post-mortem imaging for prenatal, perinatal, and pediatric cases to better understand the cause of death, decomposition factors, and effects in-utero, and to provide an alternative to traditional autopsy.