Ebtesam M. ABDALLA, Lubna M. EL-DESOUKY, Nargues M. HASSANEİN

Postmortem clinical examination by experienced clinical geneticists as an alternative to conventional autopsy for assessment of fetal and perinatal deaths in countries with limited resources

Abdalla EM, El-Desouky LM, Hassanein NM. Postmortem clinical examination by experienced clinical geneticists as an alternative to conventional autopsy for assessment of fetal and perinatal deaths in countries with limited resources. Turk J Pediatr 2015; 57: 146-153.The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of postmortem external examination performed by an experienced clinical geneticist as an alternative to autopsy in countries with limited resources. We studied a consecutive cohort of couples seeking genetic counseling for fetal loss or perinatal death over a period of 3 years. The study involved 230 couples; only 57 of them submitted a fetus or dead neonate, for whom a meticulous postmortem clinical examination was performed by an experienced clinical geneticist. The diagnosis rate for the group of cases subjected to postmortem examination (57.9%) was much higher than that of the group that comprised cases for which diagnosis was made through evaluation of medical records (27.2%).Whenever fetal or neonatal autopsy is refused or is not feasible, a comprehensive fetal or perinatal postmortem external examination by an experienced clinical geneticist may be a reasonable substitute.

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