Following the heated controversy surrounding the death of singer, Promise Ileriolowa Aloba, popularly known as Mohbad who died on Tuesday, September 12, the call for autopsy resonated across social media platforms.
This forced the hand of authorities and family members to give in while a thorough investigation was being carried out in the pursuit of justice for the deceased as well as his grieving loved ones and fans.
Below are important things you should know about autopsy:
An autopsy, also known as necropsy, postmortem, or postmortem examination is a specialised surgical procedure used to determine the cause and manner of death. The cause of death is the medical reason explaining why a patient passed. The manner of death is the circumstances surrounding and leading to the death.
An autopsy may also be performed to observe the effects of disease and to establish the evolution and mechanisms of disease processes.
It involves the dissection and examination of a dead body and its organs and structures.
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There are generally two types of autopsies depending on the manner of death. The first is a forensic autopsy, which is done to find the cause of death and to collect any evidence from the body that might help in a police investigation. The other kind is a medical autopsy, which is done in a hospital for research or informational purposes.
The Forensic Autopsy is also called a “medico-legal” autopsy. This type of autopsy is performed at the request of law enforcement by the coroner or medical examiner who has medico-legal authority where the death occurred. A forensic autopsy is needed when a person’s death is suspicious, unexpected, or unnatural. It may also be conducted if the person was involved in a crime to collect evidence for the case.
The medical autopsy is performed in the hospital, by the pathologist, based on the consent of the deceased’s next of kin in order to find and better understand the causes of death.
The cause of death in medical autopsies is often already known and so the purpose of the autopsy is more an attempt to answer specific questions that family members or physicians may have regarding the case.
An autopsy is performed like a surgical operation. The steps may include:
The autopsy is performed as soon as possible following the family’s consent.
It is performed by a specially qualified doctor, called a pathologist, who is assisted by a technician.
The room in which the autopsy is performed is very similar to a hospital operating theatre.
The body is laid out carefully on an examination table.
The pathologist first looks at the body, noting its appearance.
Photographs and X-rays may be taken.
The pathologist makes a cut on the body from the collarbone to the lower abdomen to examine the chest and abdominal organs.
Tiny tissue samples are taken from each organ for examination under a microscope and may also be sent for chemical analysis or microbiological culture.
In most cases, the brain is examined. This requires cutting through the scalp and skull. The brain is a very fragile organ – to examine it carefully and properly may take up to three weeks.
Some organs may need to be kept for up to six weeks so that further tests can be performed in the pathology department.
After the autopsy, the organs are replaced and the skin is stitched (sutured) closed again as happens after any operation.
The post-mortem can take up to three hours.
Tissue samples taken from the body are usually kept in the laboratory. The samples are kept in the hope that technological advances may one day answer any remaining questions about the cause of death or the nature of the disease. Keeping tissue samples requires the specific consent of the deceased’s next of kin.
Organs that have been retained for further testing are returned to the family, disposed of by the hospital, or kept for future medical research and training of medical staff, according to the family’s wishes.
Once the autopsy is complete, the body can be collected by the family’s chosen funeral director. If some of the organs have been retained for further testing, the funeral may need to be delayed for a few days or weeks if the family wants the body to be whole before it is buried or cremated. In this case, the funeral director can arrange to embalm the body.
A preliminary report is available within the first few days, but the full results of the autopsy are not usually available until around six to 12 weeks later.
