One year with autopsy and case reports: an immense educational experience (2024)

Autops Case Rep. 2018 Apr-Jun; 8(2): e2018015.

Published online 2018 Apr 18. doi:10.4322/acr.2018.015

PMCID: PMC5953182

PMID: 29780752

Ameer Hamza^a

Author information Article notes Copyright and License information PMC Disclaimer

Last year in February I was looking for an appropriate and related journal to submit an autopsycase report when I came across the journal “Autopsy and case reports” (A&CR).Ever since, it has been a great educational experience. Today, there are limited PubMed indexedjournals that are open access, A&CR is one of them. The journal publishes unique and originalautopsy and clinical case reports. The cases range from rare entities to unusual presentationof common entities and concise yet comprehensive reviews of common entities.

The journal has a dedicated section, “image in focus” for gross images. Beinga pathology resident this section always fascinates me and I came across some wonderful imagesof different diseases including endomyocardial fibrosis,¹holoprosencephaly,²gelatinous transformation of bone marrow,³Eisenmenger syndrome,⁴fibrinous pericarditis,⁵periprostatic venous thrombosis,⁶cardiac myxoma⁷and punched out skull lesions of multiple myeloma.⁸This list goes on and on and the archives of the journal⁹has a great collection of images. These images come with a brief description of the diseases whichis definitely a great resource for quick review of these entities.

Autopsy cases section of the journal focuses of detailed autopsy findings of rare and unusualcauses of death. Thorough and intrigue discussion about a number of unusual causes of death includingcoronary amyloidosis,¹⁰disseminated aspergillosis,¹¹gastrointestinal cytomegalovirus disease,¹²Morquio syndrome associated with gastric adenocarcinoma,¹³mycotic aneurysm with aortoduodenal fistula,¹⁴miliary tuberculosis in a renal transplant recipient,¹⁵disseminated toxoplasmosis diagnosed at autopsy¹⁶and thymic teratoma causing non-immune hydrops fetalis,¹⁷can be found in this section. Again, these are just a few examples from a long list of cases availablein the archives.⁹

Similarly, the clinical cases are also of great educational value. Only within the last volumeof the journal, there were some clinical case reports of rare entities including, undifferentiatedcarcinoma of the pancreas with osteoclast-like giant cells,¹⁸concurrent BRAF V600E mutation driven hairy cell leukemia and melanoma,¹⁹spontaneous regression of a pulmonary adenocarcinoma,²⁰phosphaturic mesenchymal tumor,²¹perianal Langerhans cell histiocytosis,²²pulmonary placental transmogrification,²³native-valve endocarditis caused by Achromobacter xylosoxidans,²⁴centronuclear myopathy²⁵and migrainous infarction.²⁶Even if the cases are not rare entities, the intrigue discussions are always worth reading. Moreover,the image quality in all the sections of the journal is one of the finest.

Lastly, the editorial and letters to the editor are usually related to the issue of autopsies.A&CR not only provided me with the latest updates in the field of autopsy including “Diagnosticand Management Autopsy²⁷” and “virtual autopsy²⁸” but also offered me an opportunity to discuss the autopsies in relation to pathologyresidents.²⁹^,³⁰

I believe A&CR will keep providing us with the latest updates in the field of autopsy and qualitydiscussion about rare diseases.

Footnotes

How to cite: Hamza A. One year with autopsy and case reports: an immense educational experience.Autops Case Rep [Internet]. 2018;8(2):e2018015.http://dx.doi.org/10.4322/acr.2018.015

Financial support: None

REFERENCES

1. Gutierrez PS, Campos FPF. Endomyocardial fibrosis.Autops Case Rep. 2017;7(3):3-6. 10.4322/acr.2017.024. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]