Autopsy registry can facilitate COVID ‐19 research

Abstract

The autopsy is an important instrument to understand the pathogenesis of diseases, including infectious diseases and novel pathogens like Ebola, SARS or SARS-CoV-2 (Mari Saez et al, 2015; Nicholls et al, 2003). The first autopsy studies already suggested important disease mechanisms in fatal COVID-19 cases with potential therapeutic implications. These include increased thromboembolism and vascular dysfunction (Lax et al, 2020; Menter et al, 2020; Wichmann et al, 2020), infection of endothelial cells (Varga et al, 2020), viral spread in different organs (Puelles et al, 2020), or the pathological mechanisms of lung injury (Ackermann et al, 2020; Schaller et al, 2020). Despite this, no ongoing registry gathered autopsy data, and no specific autopsy registry existed until our recent initiative.