A Review of Postmortem Findings in Patients With COVID-19

Multiple public health problems have been caused by various coronavirus strains over the last few years, such as the middle eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and COVID-19. COVID-19, which is also known as coronavirus disease 2019, was first detected in Wuhan, China, and has significantly impacted people's health and lives. Additionally, it has led to a pandemic, and the virus has spread to over 121 countries worldwide. There is numerous information available regarding this virus. A detailed and extensive study of the morphological and histopathological findings will help understand and diagnose the disease. As it is a new disease, it is challenging to understand the mechanism of the action and disease pathology due to the limited availability of data from autopsies or biopsies. However, as the detailed mechanism of injury remains unclear, this paper aims to review the postmortem gross and histopathological findings of various organs that have been affected with coronavirus, focusing on the pulmonary, cardiac, and hematologic findings. This paper emphasizes the postmortem findings of the effect of the coronavirus disease on multiple organ systems. Advance search of the keywords on PubMed was used, limiting the search to the last five years. The eligible article is narrowed based on relevance containing postmortem findings of the novel virus; COVID-19. A total of 25 full-text articles were selected and used in the review of this paper.