Ethical and Practical Implications of Autopsy Examination

Autopsy (necropsy, postmortem examination, autopsy cadaverum) is often marginalized in contemporary medicine, although it remains an important practice with enormous potential to move forwards new medical information and develop clinical practice. Many doctors are not common with autopsy examination and are not sufficiently conscious of the benefits of this procedure not only for the families involved, but also for patients. Standard autopsy should ideally be an critical part of investigating foetal loss, newborn deaths and neonatal deaths without foetal malformations. In many countries where family approval is required, it has been recently recorded a decrease in the number of autopsies. Clinicians and other family doctors requiring family consent for autopsy should consider in advance the options for a full, limited, or step by step post-mortem examination; the problem of tissue sampling and the autopsy value, as well as the possibility that the information obtained has a real benefit for themselves should also be iterated. However, this type of information must be provided in compliance with personal and cultural values of the involved families. Therefore, the role and usefulness of autopsy will be reflected in their public support, and only when the new generation of physicians will realize the importance of the knowledge gained from examining the human body after death, the importance of necropsy for current medicine will be understood.