After dissection

Abstract

Many of the ancillary investigations that can be performed both during and after the post mortem have been discussed as necessary in the relevant evisceration and dissection chapters. This chapter brings these and other further investigatory techniques together and discusses them in more detail. It starts by detailing the various rapid diagnosis techniques that are available to the pathologist at the time of post mortem. This includes frozen sections, cytology and macroscopical dye techniques. Following this, the techniques required when taking samples for ancillary investigations are detailed, including microbiology, biochemistry, toxicology and haematology. The taking and reporting of tissue samples for histology is then described in detail.