Institute of Legal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
Department of Anatomic Pathology, Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Nigeria.
Int J Legal Med. 2024 Mar;138(2):431-442. doi: 10.1007/s00414-023-03088-w. Epub 2023 Oct 14.
In pandemics or to further study highly contagious infectious diseases, new strategies are needed for the collection of post-mortem tissue samples to identify the pathogen as well as its morphological impact. In this study, an ultrasound-guided minimally invasive tissue sampling (MITS) protocol was developed and validated for post-mortem use. The histological and microbiological qualities of post-mortem specimens were evaluated and compared between MITS and conventional autopsy (CA) in a series of COVID-19 deaths. Thirty-six ultrasound-guided MITS were performed. In five cases more, specimens for histological and virological examination were also obtained and compared during the subsequently performed CA. Summary statistics and qualitative interpretations (positive, negative) were calculated for each organ tissue sample from MITS and CA, and target genes were determined for both human cell count (beta-globin) and virus (SARS-CoV-2 specific E gene). There are no significant differences between MITS and CA with respect to the detectability of viral load in individual organs, which is why MITS can be of utmost importance and an useful alternative, especially during outbreaks of infectious diseases.
在大流行期间或为了进一步研究高度传染性的传染病，需要新的策略来收集死后组织样本，以确定病原体及其形态影响。在这项研究中，开发并验证了一种超声引导下的微创组织取样（MITS）方案，用于死后使用。在一系列 COVID-19 死亡病例中，评估并比较了 MITS 和常规尸检（CA）的死后标本的组织学和微生物学质量。进行了 36 次超声引导的 MITS。在随后进行的 CA 中，在五个以上的病例中，还获得了用于组织学和病毒学检查的标本，并进行了比较。对 MITS 和 CA 的每个器官组织样本进行了汇总统计和定性解释（阳性、阴性），并确定了用于人类细胞计数（β-球蛋白）和病毒（SARS-CoV-2 特异性 E 基因）的靶基因。MITS 和 CA 在个体器官中病毒载量的检测方面没有显著差异，因此 MITS 至关重要，是一种有用的替代方法，特别是在传染病爆发期间。
