Today complex vascular and cardiological interventions are performed in severely ill patients. Autopsy is the reference standard for quality control for almost two centuries, but autopsy rates for patients dying in hospitals are decreasing rapidly. Virtual autopsy has shown to be a good alternative for classic autopsy.
Patients dying within 96h after a cardiological intervention of a cardio-/vascular-surgery are eligible to be included in the study. If the next of kin give oral informed consent a virtual autopsy based on a CT angiography followed by a classic medical autopsy will be performed. Ante mortem findings will be compared to findings from both autopsy methods and presented to the clinicians. Primary outcome will be the inter-method agreement. Secondary outcome will be the satisfaction of the clinicians evaluated by a standardized questionnaire.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
50
Comparison of post-mortem angiography/virtual autopsy and medical autopsy
Department of Intensive Care Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE)
Hamburg, Germany
Agreement of virtual autopsy and medical autopsy (inter-method agreement)
Diagnoses made by virtual autopsy will be compared to diagnoses made by classic autopsy.
Time frame: 1 week
Quality evaluation (satisfaction of the clinicians evaluated by a standardized questionnaire)
Diagnoses made by any autopsy method will be compared to ante mortem diagnoses.
Time frame: 2 weeks
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