Use of the postmortem MRI for the cerebral lesions diagnosis in the fetuses and newborns.

Tumanova U.N., Serova N.S., Shchegolev A.I.

Postmortem magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a promising method for studying the bodies of deceased patients. The literature data and the results of our own re-searches on the use of MRI for the analysis of brain changes in dead fetuses, still-births and deceased babies are pre-sented. Noted that the postmortem MRI picture natural-ly differs from the characteristics obtained during life. The features of the MRI of semiotics of nonspecific postmortem changes that determine successful postmortem research and the elucidation of tanatogenesis are described in detail. The advantages of postmortem MRI in determining linear characteristics, areas and volumes of individual regions and the entire brain are shown. Building a 3D image significantly facilitates the subsequent autopsy study. It is proved that MRI images show the stages of fetal brain development sufficiently reliably and allow determining the correspondence of its structure to gestational age. The data indi-cating the high efficacy of postmortem MRI for identifying abnormalities of development and pathological processes of the brain, including hypoxic-ischemic lesions and various types of hemorrhage, are given. It is concluded that the results of postmortem MRI can often exceed the possibilities of pathoanatomical research with respect to macerated fetuses, as well as for clarity and time of receipt of the final results. Postmortem MRI is a highly informative method for identifying stages of brain maturation, developmental abnormalities and various pathological processes. However, postmortem virtopsy cannot be an alternative to autopsy, since it does not allow histological, microbiological and molecular genetic studies of tissue's and organ's samples.
1 - Research Center of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology.
2 - I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University). Moscow, Russia.


 

 

 

 

 

 

Keywords: fetus, stillborn, autopsy, virtopsy, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), brain, degree of maturation, developmental abnormalities, hypoxic-ischemic lesions, hemor-rhage.

 

Corresponding author:Tumanova U.N., e-mail: Этот e-mail адрес защищен от спам-ботов, для его просмотра у Вас должен быть включен Javascript

 

For citation: Tumanova U.N., Serova N.S., Shchegolev A.I. Use of the postmortem MRI for the cerebral lesions diagnosis in the fetuses and newborns. REJR. 2017; 7 (3):8-22. DOI:10.21569/2222-7415-2017-7-3-8-22./em>

Received: 30.05.2017 Accepted: 20.07.2017