Autopsy without a scalpel

With the 'virtopsy' system, Prof. Michael Thali and his colleagues at the University of Berne (Switzerland) perform about 100 autopsies each year without the need for a scalpel. Determine the cause of death of the victim.

"Without opening the corpse, we still know 60-80% of the wounds and 80% of the causes of death," explains Thali. Since 2006, the system developed by his team has been used to screen for all sudden deaths or unexplained deaths in the Berne capital.

Demonstration of a virtual autopsy system with a dummy.

According to Thali, his group is the first in the world to combine CT imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, and vascular biopsy. The CT imaging of bone and brain lesions while magnetic resonance imaging (MR imaging) resides in the CT scanner while the X-ray machine is seen inside the blood vessels. "It's a big advantage because you do not have to intervene in the corpse, but you can still see the enlarged image in three dimensions to analyze the cause of death ," he said. Another advantage of virtual autopsy is that the autopsy records are stored digitally and can be easily shared over the Internet.

Despite the advantages, Professor Thali said the virtual autopsy technique could not replace traditional methods overnight. 'Currently, the traditional examination procedure is very old but still the gold standard. We can use 'virtopsy' to diagnose traffic accident deaths but not yet apply to victims of influenza A (H1N1), ' said Professor Thali.