Institute of Forensic Medicine "Milovan Milovanović", University of Belgrade - School of Medicine, 31a Deligradska str, Belgrade, 11000, Serbia.
Forensic Sci Med Pathol. 2021 Mar;17(1):136-138. doi: 10.1007/s12024-020-00308-2. Epub 2020 Sep 21.
We believe that forensic medicine should play a significant role in the COVID-19 pandemic. Forensic pathologists should ask and answer various questions through autopsy cases during the COVID-19 period, thus providing a significant contribution to science. Some of the potential roles of forensic medicine in this issue include: determining the exact cause of death among the deceased who were SARS-CoV-2 positive, contribution to the accuracy of mortality statistics, understanding pathological mechanisms of COVID-19, tracking the presence of the virus over time, survival of the virus after death as well as dealing with medicolegal issues. A detailed multidisciplinary analysis of autopsy samples would undoubtedly help understand this new illness and its clinical management. Therefore, autopsies during the COVID-19 pandemic should not be an exception, but certainly a rule.
我们认为法医学应该在 COVID-19 大流行中发挥重要作用。法医病理学家应该通过 COVID-19 期间的尸检案例提出并回答各种问题,从而为科学做出重大贡献。法医学在这个问题上的一些潜在作用包括:确定 SARS-CoV-2 阳性死者的确切死因,有助于提高死亡率统计数据的准确性,了解 COVID-19 的病理机制,随着时间的推移跟踪病毒的存在,了解病毒在死亡后的存活情况以及处理医学法律问题。对尸检样本进行详细的多学科分析无疑将有助于了解这种新疾病及其临床管理。因此,COVID-19 大流行期间的尸检不应该是例外,而应该是惯例。