Post-Mortem Echocardiography as a Guide to Cardiac Autopsy—A Worthwhile Concept?

Abstract

Sudden and unexpected death in the young is a common and worldwide problem. Sudden, unexpected death in infancy (SUDI), clinically unexpected death in an infant between one week and one year of age, affects around 1 in 1000 infants. Autopsy will reveal a specific cause of death in only one third of cases. This has led to various ancillary examinations in an effort to increase the diagnostic yield of the autopsy.In this case report it is suggested that another diagnostic modality, that of the post-mortem echocardiogram might be a worthwhile concept to explore.

Postmortem Diagnostic Imaging to Evaluate Idiopathic Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in a Roborovski Hamster

“…Even though thoracic radiography and CT scan are helpful in the determination of cardiac diseases in exotic animals (Krautwald et al, 2010), they are inappropriate for postmortem inspection of the heart due to alveolar atelectasis which negatively affects the imaging contrast, compared to echocardiography. Postmortem echocardiography has been performed on the human heart as another diagnostic modality to autopsy to reveal a specific cause of death in infants to increase the diagnostic yield of the autopsy (Ker et al, 2010) and to assess the chamber size and left ventricular wall thickness (Chon et al, 2017). Likewise, echocardiography is the method of choice in dogs and cats for diagnosing cardiac malfunction and cardiac geometry in exotic companion mammals or animal models (Mitchell & Tully, 2016;Babaei & Razmaraii, 2020).…”