Adult post-mortem imaging in traumatic and cardiorespiratory death and its relation to clinical radiological imaging

The use of post-mortem imaging is expanding throughout the world with increasing use of advanced imaging techniques, such as contrast-enhanced CT and MRI. The questions asked of post-mortem imaging are complex and can be very different, for example for natural sudden death investigation will focus on the cause, whereas for trauma the cause of death is often clear, but injury patterns may be very revealing in investigating the background to the incident. Post-mortem imaging is different to clinical imaging regarding both the appearance of pathology and the information required, but there is much to learn from many years of clinical research in the use of these techniques. Furthermore, it is possible that post-mortem imaging research could be used not only for investigating the cause of death but also as a model to conduct clinically relevant research. This article reviews challenges to the development of post-mortem imaging for trauma, identification and cardiorespiratory death, and how they may be influenced by current clinical thinking and practice.