Virtopsy: Touch-free autopsy

Raj Kumar Badam, Triekan Sownetha, D B Gandhi Babu, Shefali Waghray, Lavanya Reddy, Komali Garlapati, Sunanda Chavva, Raj Kumar Badam, Triekan Sownetha, D B Gandhi Babu, Shefali Waghray, Lavanya Reddy, Komali Garlapati, Sunanda Chavva

Abstract

The word "autopsy" denotes "to see with own eyes." Autopsy (postmortem) is a process that includes a thorough examination of a corpse noting everything related to anatomization, surface wounds, histological and culture studies. Virtopsy is a term extracted from two words "virtual" and "autopsy." It employs imaging methods that are routinely used in clinical medicine such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging in the field of autopsy, to find the reason for death. Virtopsy is a multi-disciplinary technology that combines forensic medicine and pathology, roentgenology, computer graphics, biomechanics, and physics. It is rapidly gaining importance in the field of forensics. This approach has been recently used by forensic odontologists, but yet to make its own mark in the field. This article mainly deals with "virtopsy" where in various articles were web searched, relevant data was selected, extracted, and summarized here.

Keywords: Autopsy; forensic odontology; image processing; radiology; virtopsy.

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Virtibot system with biopsy mounted module. yes Courtesy: Lars C. Ebert, Wolfang Ptacek, Martin Furst, Steffen Ross, Michael J. Thali, Gary Hatch. Minimally Invasive Postmortem Telebiopsy. J Forensic Sci 2012;57:2

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Source: PubMed

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