Minimal Invasive Autopsies to Investigate Changes in Deceased COVID-19 Patients (MIA-COVID-19)

Jessa Hospital

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

COVID-19

Treatments

Procedure: CT-scan with minimal invasive autopsy

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT04366882

JessaH_COVID-19_MIA

Details and patient eligibility

About

Rationale In a very short time corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a pandemic with high morbidity and mortality. The main cause of death is respiratory failure including acute respiratory distress syndrome, however the exact mechanisms and other underlying pathology is currently not yet known. In the current setting of the COVID-19 pandemic complete autopsies seem too risky due to the risk of SARS CoV-2 transmission. Yet, as so little is known, additional histopathological, microbiological and virologic study of tissue of deceased COVID-19 patients will provide important clinical and pathophysiological information. Minimal invasive autopsy combined with postmortem imaging seems therefore an optimal method combining safety on the one hand yet proving significant information on the other.

This study aims to determine the cause of death and attributable conditions in deceased COVID-19 patients. This will be performed using post-mortem CT-scanning plus CT-guided MIA to obtain tissue for further histological, microbiological and pathological diagnostics. In addition, the pathophysiology of COVID-19 will be examined by further tissue analysis.

Enrollment

48 patients

Sex

All

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

All patients with COVID-19 that die during hospitalization in Jessa hospital. COVID-19 is defined as either a positive SARS CoV-2 PCR result OR a high clinical suspicion combined with typical radiologic findings in the absence of an alternative explanation for the clinical picture.

Exclusion criteria