Citation

Rutty GN, Johnson C, Amoroso J, Robinson C, Bradley CJ, Morgan B. Int. J. Legal Med. 2016; 131(1): 211-216.

Affiliation

Radiology Department, University of Leicester, Robert Kilpatrick Building, Leicester, LE2 7LX, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00414-016-1473-6

PMID

27817167

Abstract

We report for the first time the use of coaxial cutting needle biopsy, guided by post-mortem computed tomography (PMCT), to sample internal body tissues for bacterioplankton PCR analysis to investigate drowning. This technical report describes the biopsy technique, the comparison of the needle biopsy and the invasive autopsy sampling results, as well as the PMCT and autopsy findings. By using this new biopsy sampling approach for bacterioplankton PCR, we have developed on previous papers describing the minimally invasive PMCT approach for the diagnosis of drowning. When such a system is used, the operator must take all precautions to avoid contamination of the core biopsy samples due to the sensitivity of PCR-based analytic systems.

Language: en