autopsy – ABC CARDIOL

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Original Article

Macroscopic Evaluation of Atherosclerosis in the Arteries: An Autopsy Assessment Tool

Mariana Silva Oliveira et al. Bianca Gonçalves Silva Torquato Maria Helena Soares Maria Luiza Gonçalves dos Reis Monteiro … Guilherme Ribeiro Juliano Laura Sanches Aguiar Vicente de Paula Antunes Teixeira Mara Lúcia da Fonseca Ferraz

Abstract

Background

Atherosclerosis, in some cases, is an asymptomatic condition, and it is important to know the degree of arterial impairment caused by plaques and its association with risk factors. Autopsy examination provides understanding of basic disease processes and assessment to data about macroscopic characteristic of atherosclerotic involvement.

Objective

To macroscopically assess and standardize atherosclerotic involvement of aorta, carotid and iliac arteries and compare with age, gender and causes of death.

Methods

We collected 53 aortic arteries, 53 right carotid arteries, 53 left carotid arteries, 53 right iliac arteries and 53 left iliac arteries. For this assessment, the extension of fatty streaks, atheromatous plaques, fibrosis and calcification were considered, being the reference to score the degree of atherosclerotic involvement. Many degrees of atherosclerosis and accurate values were observed for mild, moderate and severe classification. For statistical analysis, data were analyzed using the software GraphPad Prism® 7.0. Differences were considered statistically significant if p-value was less than 5% (p <0.05).

Results

Carotid arteries had greater atherosclerotic involvement compared to the other arteries (K = 15.73, p = 0.0004). Atherosclerosis was progressive and significant with increasing age (carotid arteries: t = 6.321; p <0.0001; aorta: U = 83.5; p <0.0001; iliac: U = 306; p <0.0001) and as cause of cardiovascular death (carotids: t = 5.047; p <0.0001; aorta: U = 98.5; p = 0.0068; iliac: U = 467.5; p = 0.0012).

Conclusion

Macroscopic assessment of atherosclerosis is an innovative and low-cost way of direct visualization of atherosclerotic plaques, enabling an association with risk factors such as increasing age and cardiovascular diseases, providing important data for clinical practice.

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Original Article

Sudden Cardiac Death in Brazil: A Community-Based Autopsy Series (2006-2010)

Maria Fernanda Braggion-Santos et al. Gustavo Jardim Volpe Antonio Pazin-Filho Benedito Carlos Maciel … José Antonio Marin-Neto André Schmidt

Background:

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a sudden unexpected event, from a cardiac cause, that occurs in less than one hour after the symptoms onset, in a person without any previous condition that would seem fatal or who was seen without any symptoms 24 hours before found dead. Although it is a relatively frequent event, there are only few reliable data in underdeveloped countries.

Objective:

We aimed to describe the features of SCD in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil (600,000 residents) according to Coroners’ Office autopsy reports.

Methods:

We retrospectively reviewed 4501 autopsy reports between 2006 and 2010, to identify cases of SCD. Specific cause of death as well as demographic information, date, location and time of the event, comorbidities and whether cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was attempted were collected.

Results:

We identified 899 cases of SCD (20%); the rate was 30/100000 residents per year. The vast majority of cases of SCD involved a coronary artery disease (CAD) (64%) and occurred in men (67%), between the 6^th and the 7^th decades of life. Most events occurred during the morning in the home setting (53.3%) and CPR was attempted in almost half of victims (49.7%). The most prevalent comorbidity was systemic hypertension (57.3%). Chagas’ disease was present in 49 cases (5.5%).

Conclusion:

The majority of victims of SCD were men, in their sixties and seventies and the main cause of death was CAD. Chagas’ disease, an important public health problem in Latin America, was found in about 5.5% of the cases.

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Artigo Original

NHETS − Necropsy Heart Transplantation Study

Thiago Ninck Valette et al. Silvia Moreira Ayub-Ferreira Luiz Alberto Benvenuti Victor Sarli Issa … Fernando Bacal Paulo Roberto Chizzola Germano Emilio Conceição Souza Alfredo Inácio Fiorelli Ronaldo Honorato Barros dos Santos Edimar Alcides Bocchi

Background:

Discrepancies between pre and post-mortem diagnoses are reported in the literature, ranging from 4.1 to 49.8 % in cases referred for necropsy, with important impact on patient treatment.

Objective:

To analyze patients who died after cardiac transplantation and to compare the pre- and post-mortem diagnoses.

Methods:

Perform a review of medical records and analyze clinical data, comorbidities, immunosuppression regimen, laboratory tests, clinical cause of death and cause of death at the necropsy. Then, the clinical and necroscopic causes of death of each patient were compared.

Results:

48 deaths undergoing necropsy were analyzed during 2000-2010; 29 (60.4 %) had concordant clinical and necroscopic diagnoses, 16 (33.3%) had discordant diagnoses and three (6.3%) had unclear diagnoses. Among the discordant ones, 15 (31.3%) had possible impact on survival and one (2.1%) had no impact on survival. The main clinical misdiagnosis was infection, with five cases (26.7 % of discordant), followed by hyperacute rejection, with four cases (20 % of the discordant ones), and pulmonary thromboembolism, with three cases (13.3% of discordant ones).

Conclusion:

Discrepancies between clinical diagnosis and necroscopic findings are commonly found in cardiac transplantation. New strategies to improve clinical diagnosis should be made, considering the results of the necropsy, to improve the treatment of heart failure by heart transplantation.

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Artigo Original

Clinical and pathological discrepancies and cardiovascular findings in 409 consecutive autopsies

Aline Fusco Fares et al. Jorge Fares Gislaine Fusco Fares José Antônio Cordeiro … Marcelo Arruda Nakazone Patrícia Maluf Cury

BACKGROUND: Discrepancies between clinical and autopsy diagnoses persists worldwide. OBJECTIVE: We evaluated autopsies in a university hospital in order to assess the accuracy of clinical cardiovascular diagnosis compared to postmortem findings. METHODS: Four hundred nine consecutive autopsies between 2003 and 2006 were analyzed in a tertiary-care hospital in São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil. The comparison of clinic-pathological cardiovascular findings was performed using Goldman’s discrepancies classification. RESULTS: Autopsy rate at the hospital was 8%. Cardiovascular causes of death represented 42.8% (175 out of 409 patients) of autopsy diagnoses. In 98 (56%) patients, there were major discrepancies (class I and II), representing a large proportion of misdiagnoses for mesenteric infarction (84.6%), acute myocardial infarction (64.7%), aorta dissection (64.2%), and pulmonary embolism (62.5%). Highest concordance rates were observed in congestive heart failure (59%) and acute ischemic stroke (58.8%). Age, sex, length of stay and the last admission unit at the hospital were not associated with Goldman criteria. CONCLUSION: Clinic-autopsy discrepancies concerning cardiovascular death remain high in Brazil, despite technological resources available. Moreover, our findings reinforce the importance of postmortem examination in contributing to medical care improvement.

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Artigo Original

Congenital cardiac malformations in pediatric necropsies: characteristics, associations and prevalence

Dinaldo de Lima Leite et al. Hélcio Miziara Moema Veloso

BACKGROUND: In Brazil, since 2001, the congenital abnormalities have represented the second cause of death in children younger than one year, with cardiovascular defects being responsible for 39.4% of these deaths. OBJECTIVES: To establish the prevalence and the characteristics of the congenital cardiac malformations in pediatric necropsies performed in Hospital Regional da Asa Sul, Brasília, DF, Brazil, from January 1996 to December 2007. METHODS: This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study that reviewed 1,591 necropsies performed from January 1996 to December 2007 and found 189 (11.9%) with congenital cardiac malformations, included in this study. RESULTS: The cardiac abnormalities were observed mainly in the group of live births (117/61.9%), followed by the stillbirths (35/18.5%), the infant group (30/15.9%) and the preschoolers’ group (7/3.7%), with no cases identified among school-aged children. The main alterations detected were: interatrial communication in 96 patients (27%), interventricular communication in 66 patients (18.5%) and patent ductus arteriosus in 51 (14.3%), with no predominance of either sex. In 133 patients (70.4%), the cardiopathies were multiple and in 96 (50.8%) they were associated with anomalies in other organs and systems; among these, 45 (23.8%) presented cardiopathies as syndrome components, especially trisomies, at all age ranges. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study show a high prevalence of congenital cardiac anomalies in our country and distribution and association that were similar to the ones observed in developed countries. The high mortality associated to such anomalies highlights the need for more comprehensive research in order to identify the risk factors and seek the primary prevention of some of these defects.

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Original Article

Clinical and pathological assessment of 82 patients with cardiovascular diseases undergoing autopsy at the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu from 1988 to 1993

Reinaldo Ayer de Oliveira et al. Marcos Augusto de Moraes Silva Rubens Ramos de Andrade Mário Rubens Guimarães Montenegro

OBJECTIVE: To evaluated the clinical diagnostic, efficiency for basic death causes in patients dying of circulatory disease and de relative frequency of those diseases. METHODS: Analysis of medical record data of 82 patients, ages from 16 to 84 years old (68 over 40 years old), whose died of circulatory disease and had undergone necropsy in the period from 1988 to 1993 years in the University Hospital of Medicine Faculty of Botucatu-UNESP, Br. RESULTS: The functional class of patients were III or IV, in 78%, and 81.7% needed urgent hospitalization. By the clinical judgment the death were by ischemic heart disease in 32 (21 acute myocardial infarction), Chagas’disease in 12, valvopathy in 11, cardiomyopathy in 7, heart failure with no specification of cardiopathy in 11 and other causes in 9. At the necropsy the death cause was ischemic heart disease in 34 patients, valvopathy in 10, Chagas’disease in 10, cardiomyopathy in 5, and heart failure with no specification of cardiopathy in 2.The concordance taxes were in thhe same order: 94,6%, 90,0%, 83.3%, 71.4% and 28.5%. CONCLUSION: There was a great efficiency of clinical diagnosis for death cause in a general university hospital. The ischemic heart disease were the main causes of death.

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