High risk medicolegal autopsies: is a full postmortem examination necessary?

Aims Aiming to reduce the numbers of high risk autopsies, we use a minimally invasive approach. HIV/hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive coronial referrals, mainly intravenous drug abusers, have full autopsy only if external examination, toxicology and/or postmortem CT scan do not provide the cause of death. In this study, we review and validate this protocol. Methods and results 62 HIV/HCV-positive subjects were investigated. All had external...