REVIEW

Health and safety at necropsy

J L Burton

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr J L Burton, Academic Unit of Pathology, E-Floor Medical School, Beech Hill Road, Sheffield S10 2RX, UK;
j.l.burton{at}shef.ac.uk

The postmortem room is a source of potential hazards and risks, not only to the pathologist and anatomical pathology technician, but also to visitors to the mortuary and those handling the body after necropsy. Postmortem staff have a legal responsibility to make themselves aware of, and to minimise, these dangers. This review focuses specifically on those hazards and risks associated with the necropsy of infected patients, with foreign objects present in the body, and with bodies that have been contaminated by chemicals or radioactive sources.

Keywords: health and safety; necropsy; mortuary; hazard

Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; HBV, hepatitis B virus; HCV, hepatitis C virus; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus; OR, adjusted odds ratio; TSE, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy; v-CJD, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Flavin, R J, Gibbons, N, O'Briain, D S (2007). Mycobacterium tuberculosis at autopsy--exposure and protection: an old adversary revisited. J. Clin. Pathol. 60: 487-491 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Swift, B, Rutty, G N (2004). The exploding bullet. J. Clin. Pathol. 57: 108-108 [Full Text]  

eLetters:

Read all eLetters

The Exploding Bullet.

Benjamin Swift, et al.

JCP Online, 5 Jun 2003 [Full text]