Complete post-mortem data in a fatal case of COVID-19: clinical, radiological and pathological correlations
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CASE REPORT
Complete post-mortem data in a fatal case of COVID-19: clinical, radiological and pathological correlations Mathilde Ducloyer 1,2 & Benjamin Gaborit 3 & Claire Toquet 4 & Louise Castain 5,6 & Antonin Bal 7,8 & Pierre Paul Arrigoni 2 & Raphaël Lecomte 3 & Renaud Clement 1 & Christine Sagan 4 Received: 28 April 2020 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract A 75-year-old man presented to a French hospital with a 4-day fever after returning from a coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) cluster region. A reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction test was positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS CoV-2) using a nasopharyngeal swab sample. After he returned home and a telephone follow-up, he was found deceased 9 days after first showing symptoms. Whole-body, non-enhanced, post-mortem computed tomography (PMCT) and a forensic autopsy were performed approximately 48 h after death, with sanitary precautions. The PMCT showed bilateral and diffuse crazy-paving lung opacities, with bilateral pleural effusions. Post-mortem virology studies detected the presence of SARS-CoV-2 (B.1 lineage) in the nasopharynx, plasma, lung biopsies, pleural effusion and faeces confirming the persistence of viral ribonucleic acid 48 h after death. Microscopic examination showed that severe lung damage was responsible for his death. The main abnormality was diffuse alveolar damage, associated with different stages of inflammation and fibrosis. This case is one of the first to describe complete post-mortem data for a COVID-19 death and highlights the ability of PMCT to detect severe involvement of the lungs before autopsy in an apparently natural death. The present pathology results are concordant with previously reported findings and reinforce the disease pathogenesis hypothesis of combined viral replication with an inappropriate immune response. Keywords COVID-19 . SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus . Post-mortem . Autopsy . Pathology . Post-mortem computed tomography
* Mathilde Ducloyer [email protected] 1
Forensic Medicine Department, University Hospital, 30 Boulevard Jean Monnet, Nantes 44000, France
2
Department of Radiology, University Hospital, Nantes, France
3
Department of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital, Nantes, France
4
Department of Pathology, University Hospital, Nantes, France
5
Virology Department, University Hospital, Nantes, France
6
Inserm, Centre de Recherche en Transplantation et Immunologie, UMR 1064, ITUN, 44000 Nantes, France
7
Virology Department, Hospices Civils de Lyon, Groupement Hospitalier Nord, Institut des Agents Infectieux (IAI), Lyon, France
8
University of Lyon, Virpath, CIRI, INSERM U1111, CNRS UMR5308, ENS Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France
Abbreviations COVID-19 HES MERS PMCT RNA RT-PCR SARS-CoV 2
Coronavirus disease-19 Haematoxylin and eosin stain Middle East respiratory syndrome Post-mortem computed tomography Ribonucleic acid Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reacti
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