Endoscopic Examination in Postmortem Examination

Abstract

Postmortem examination can be divided into autopsy and postmortem inspection. Unlike autopsies, which examine the body of the deceased using invasive modalities such a dissection, postmortem inspection examines the body of the deceased using non-invasive modalities. The findings yielded by postmortem inspection of the body of the deceased are limited. In South Korea, the rate of autopsies is low [1]. To overcome this challenge, forensic radiology, such as postmortem computed tomography (PMCT), was introduced in the country. However, it is performed only at the National Forensic Service Seoul Institute [2] . Meanwhi le , endoscopy i s widely used in clinical medicine. The authors of the present study investigated the usefulness of endoscopic examination in postmortem inspection prior to autopsy. To the Korean J Leg Med 2017;41:94-99 https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2017.41.4.94