Feasibility of postmortem examination in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: the experience of a Northeast Italy University Ho
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Feasibility of postmortem examination in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: the experience of a Northeast Italy University Hospital Cristina Basso 1,2 & Fiorella Calabrese 1,2 & Marta Sbaraglia 3,4 & Claudia Del Vecchio 5,6 & Giovanni Carretta 7 & Annamaria Saieva 7 & Daniele Donato 7 & Luciano Flor 7 & Andrea Crisanti 5,6 & Angelo Paolo Dei Tos 3,4 Received: 29 April 2020 / Revised: 19 May 2020 / Accepted: 1 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract With the continuous spreading of SARS-CoV-2 and increasing number of deaths worldwide, the need and appropriateness for autopsy in patients with COVID-19 became a matter of discussion. In fact, in the COVID-19 era protection of healthcare workers is a priority besides patient management. No evidence is currently available about the real risk related to the procedure as well as to the subsequent management of the samples. We herein describe the procedure that has been used to perform the first series of postmortem examinations in the COVID center of the Padua University Hospital, Padua, Italy, after the implementation of an ad hoc operating procedure, to minimize the risk of infection for pathologists and technicians. Provided that the procedure is performed in an adequate environment respecting strict biosafety rules, our data indicate that complete postmortem examination appears to be safe and will be highly informative providing useful insights into the complex disease pathogenesis. Keywords Autopsy . Biosafety . COVID-19 . Hazard group . Infectious disease protocols
Introduction In early January 2020 in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei (China), following an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause, a novel subtype of coronavirus (CoV)
Cristina Basso, Fiorella Calabrese and Angelo Paolo Dei Tos contributed equally to this work. * Cristina Basso [email protected] * Angelo Paolo Dei Tos [email protected] 1
Cardiovascular Pathology Unit, Padua University Hospital, Padua, Italy
2
Department of Cardiac Thoracic and Vascular Sciences and Public Health, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
3
Pathology Unit, Padua University Hospital, Padua, Italy
4
Department of Medicine, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
5
Microbiology and Virology Unit, Padua University Hospital, Padua, Italy
6
Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
7
Chief Medical Office, Padua University Hospital, Padua, Italy
was identified [1–5]. The novel Cov, originally called 2019-nCOV, has then been named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the label coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19). The virus from China rapidly spread over the world generating a global pandemic (https://www.who.int/ publications-detail/global-surveillance-for-humaninfection-with-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)). The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) in UK had classified SARS-CoV-2 as group 3 of Hazard Group Definitions (HGD) (https://
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