The use of point-of-care testing to establish cause of death in the autopsy setting.

This review assesses the use of point-of-care testing (POCT) in establishing a cause of death in the autopsy setting. A search was performed of the PubMed, Medline, Embase, ScienceDirect and Scopus databases using the terms point-of-care, autopsy, post-mortem, cause of death and forensics. This search revealed some evidence for the efficacy of POCT for autopsy derived samples in the detection of viruses, sepsis and abnormal glucose levels. Other potential applications for forensic POCT include drug abuse screening, detection of alcoholic and diabetic acidoketosis and carbon monoxide poisoning. Additional studies are needed to evaluate to the accuracy of POCT compared to standard laboratory testing and to more fully understand post-mortem derived sample errors.