The densities of visceral organs and the extent of pathologic changes.

In this study, we designed a new device to measure the density of internal organs and correlated with their pathologic changes. The densities of hearts, livers, lungs and brains from 169 autopsy cases were measured with different extent of pathologic changes by an integrated volume-density meter. All samples were divided into 2 groups: intact and pathologic groups. The extent of pathologic changes was classified into 3 stages: slight edema, intermediate edema, severe edema (or severe fatty degeneration only for livers) according to the histologic features. Results show that there were significant differences between each subgroup and intact group and the density was closely correlated with pathologic changes. Therefore, the external parameter of density might offer some clues to its pathologic changes, such as edema and fatty changes.