Autopsy findings in a series of 50 decedents with Sars-CoV-2 infection, in Cuba, from April to September 2020

Authors

  • Virginia Capó de Paz Instituto de Medicina Tropical Pedro Kourí
  • Israel Borrajero Martínez
  • Teresita Montero González
  • José Hurtado de Mendoza Amat
  • Yaxsier de Armas Rodríguez
  • Carlos Domínguez Alvarez

Keywords:

autopsies, COVID-19, histopathological findings, Cuba

Abstract

Introduction: Post mortem studies are essential during epidemics of unknown etiology. Objective: to characterize the histopathological findings of autopsies performed during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Methods: this is a series of case study of minimally invasive autopsies of 50 decedents positives for SARS-CoV-2 infection that occurred from April to September 2020.
Results: COVID-19 was the basic cause of death for 27 decedents (54 %) and the contributing cause for 6 cases (12 %). The acute lung damage predominated, followed by acute kidney injury (78 %); small vacuoles fatty liver (54 %), and focal mild to moderate myocarditis (18 %). The presence of viral antigens in the alveolar, bronchiolar and renal tubular epithelial cells was detected. Conclusions: The minimally invasive autopsy became a practical and useful method for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) decedents but usual biosafety precautions should be reinforced in order to avoid generation of aerosols.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Virginia Capó de Paz, Instituto de Medicina Tropical Pedro Kourí

Doctora en Ciencias, Doctora en Ciencias Médicas. Especialista de II Grado en Anatomía Patológica. Profesora e Investigadora Titular. Vicepresidenta de la Sociedad Cubana de Anatomía Patológica. Miembro numerario de la International Academy of Pathology. Instituto de Medicina Tropical “Pedro Kouri”. La Habana, Cuba.

Downloads

Published

2021-05-08

How to Cite

Capó de Paz, V., Borrajero Martínez, I., Montero González, T., Hurtado de Mendoza Amat, J., de Armas Rodríguez, Y., & Domínguez Alvarez, C. (2021). Autopsy findings in a series of 50 decedents with Sars-CoV-2 infection, in Cuba, from April to September 2020. Anales De La Academia De Ciencias De Cuba, 11(2), e994. Retrieved from https://revistaccuba.sld.cu/index.php/revacc/article/view/994

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 2 (2021): mayo-agosto

Section

Biomedical sciences

License

The journal Anales de la Academia de Ciencias de Cuba protects copyright, and operates with a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License 4.0). By publishing in it, authors allow themselves to copy, reproduce, distribute, publicly communicate their work and generate derivative works, as long as the original author is cited and acknowledged. They do not allow, however, the use of the original work for commercial or lucrative purposes.

The authors authorize the publication of their writings, retaining the authorship rights, and assigning and transferring to the magazine all the rights protected by the intellectual property laws that govern in Cuba, which imply editing to disseminate the work.

Authors may establish additional agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (for example, placing it in an institutional repository or publishing it in a book), with recognition of having been first published in this journal.

To learn more, see https://creativecommons.org