Fig 1.
Procedures for the collection of cerebrospinal fluid (A), peripheral blood (B), liver (C), lung (D), spleen (E), and the central nervous system biopsy (F) (designed by Xabier Sagasta).
Table 1.
Type and main characteristics of the different needles used in the minimally invasive autopsy procedure for each particular biopsy, puncture sites and number of samples to be obtained.
The organ tissues are presented in the order in which the samples were collected.
Fig 2.
Representative image of the samples obtained from the central nervous system (A), liver (B), bone marrow (C) and lungs/heart and kidney (D) in the minimally invasive autopsy procedure.
Fig 3.
Median area of tissue for histological evaluation obtained from each organ in mm2.
Table 2.
Age, sex, HIV status and pathological and microbiological diagnoses obtained in the 30 minimally invasive autopsies (MIA) performed in the pilot study.
Fig 4.
Representative examples of putative causes of death identified with minimally invasive autopsy sampling.
A) Meningoencephalitis (hematoxylin and eosin, 200x); B) Pneumocysttis jiroveci pneumonia (hematoxylin and eosin, 200x); C) Cryptococcus neoformans infecting the lung (PAS metenamine silver stain, 200x); D) Kaposi’s sarcoma involving the lung (hematoxylin and eosin, 100x).