• Sudhin Thayyil, Manigandan Chandrasekaran, Lyn S Chitty, Angie Wade, Jolene Skordis-Worrall, Ian Bennett-Britton, Marta Cohen, Elspeth Withby, Neil J Sebire, Nicola J Robertson, and Andrew M Taylor.
• Centre for Cardiovascular Imaging, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK. s.thayyil@ucl.ac.uk
• Eur J Radiol. 2010 Jul 1; 75 (1): e142-8.

AbstractTo determine, in a systematic review, the diagnostic accuracy, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of less invasive autopsy by post-mortem MR imaging, in fetuses, children and adults. We searched Medline, Embase, the Cochrane library and reference lists to identify all studies comparing post-mortem MR imaging with conventional autopsy, published between January 1990 and March 2009. 539 abstracts were identified; 15 papers met the inclusion criteria; data from 9 studies were extracted (total: 146 fetuses, 11 children and 24 adults). In accurately identifying the final cause of death or most clinically significant abnormality, post-mortem MR imaging had a sensitivity and specificity of 69% (95% CI-56%, 80%) and 95% (95% CI-88%, 98%) in fetuses, and 28% (95% CI-13%, 47%) and 64% (95% CI-23%, 94%) in children and adults, respectively; however the published data is limited to small, heterogenous and poorly designed studies. Insufficient data is available on acceptability and economic evaluation of post-mortem MR imaging. Well designed, large, prospective studies are required to evaluate the accuracy of post-mortem MR imaging, before it can be offered as a clinical tool.Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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