COVID-19: Lessons from Autopsies and Biopsies

By Nana Dadzie Ghansah

Autopsies of dead patients and biopsies of diseased organs are a great way to learn about a disease’s pathology. Unfortunately, due to the highly contagious nature of COVID-19, not a lot of them have been done on victims.

As of the end of March, Chinese pathologists had sectioned 12 bodies.(This number may be higher now).

Liu Liang and his group from the Tongji Medical College at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China have done nine. They published their findings in the Journal of Forensic Medicine (202, 36(1): 19–21). The report is unfortunately in Chinese though translations can be found online.

Three minimally-invasive autopsies were performed by Bian Xiuwu and a team from Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai, China (Chinese Journal of Pathology, March 2020).

Also, Zhe Xu and his group from Beijing published biopsy findings from a victim. (Lancet Online, Feb 2020).

S. Tian and his team did lung lobectomies on two patients who were found to have SARS-CoV-2 infections retrospectively. They published their findings in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology in February 2020.

Hua Su et al looked at the histopathology of the kidneys from 26 COVID-19 victims (Kidney…