The use and application of autopsy in research.

The only limit to the use and application of the autopsy in research is the imagination of the investigator. As pathologists, it would appear that we have really neglected this powerful tool in recent decades and have undersold the potentiality of this method. As we hope to have made evident by the foregoing discussion, the field of research utilizing autopsy tissues is truly as broad as medicine itself, and if developed properly, becomes an indispensable part of the fabric of on-going research in areas of carcinogenesis, environmental disease, atherosclerosis, and aging.