Evaluation of the Utility of Research Autopsy in Oncology

An autopsy is a post-mortem medical procedure performed on a deceased person with the primary purpose of collecting tissue to support basic research and knowledge translation. This method is increasingly used to investigate the pathophysiological mechanisms of cancer development, metastasis, and treatment resistance. In this review article, we discuss the reason for using research autopsy in cancer research and provide evidence-based discussion of the quality of postmortem tissues compared to other types of biological samples. It also discusses the advantages of using postmortem tissues over other types of biological samples, including the large amount of tissue available and the multi-area sampling that is available, which is not possible in living patients. An autopsy helps identify the clonal origin and ways in which metastases spread. Also, the study of the effect of treatments on the tumor and the creation of rare and tumor-derived tissue banks in the patient is an integral part of forensic strategies and research autopsy.