Contents: Introduction to clinical autopsy

There are three types of autopsies for different purposes:

1)    Forensic autopsy regulated in Spain by the Criminal Procedure Act (art. 343, 349, 353, and 778), ordered by the judge. Its purpose is to establish the cause of death in violent deaths or foul play, deaths in which a death certificate has not been issued.

2)    Clinical autopsy, regulated in Spain by Law 29/1980, of 21th June, and Royal Decree 2230/1982 of 18^th June, aims to establish the clinical and pathologic correlation, studying the course and extent of a process, its possible modification after the indicated treatments and provide support for the training of staff sanitary. For its performance, the consent of one of the deceased’s relatives is necessary. It is also necessary that the corresponding physician certifies the patient’s death and starts the requesting procedures for an autopsy. The cost of a clinical autopsy usually ranges from 250 € in a fetus to 2,500 € of cases of prion diseases.

a. Fetal autopsies: For dead fetuses in intermediate or late fetal stage. It usually follows a feasibility criterion. Thus, it is performed in all those early fetal deaths of more than 22 weeks of gestation or more than 500g. If at least one criterion is not noted, the dead fetus should therefore be considered as a biopsy.

3)    Teaching autopsies: Teaching is carried out in the Health Science centers, using bodies donated to science.

Table 1: Differences between clinical and forensic autopsy.