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In addition to myocardial pathologies, heart size, and ventricular wall thickness, heart weight is a common parameter to describe cardiac pathology and should be recorded as accurately as possible. To date, there exists no standard for recording heart weight at autopsy, although some authors recommend weighing the heart after dissection and removal of blood and blood clots. In the study presented, the hearts of 58 decedents were weighed after being dissected out of the pericardial sac (a), after dissection using the short-axis or inflow-outflow method with manual removal of blood and blood clots (b), and after rinsing and drying (c). Depending on the dissection method, the heart weight was 7.8% lower for the inflow-outflow method and 11.6% lower for the short-axis method after dissection compared to before and correspondingly 2.9% to 5% lower again after rinsing and drying respectively. Accordingly, the heart should be dissected, blood and blood clots removed, rinsed with water, and dried with a surgical towel after dissection, before weighing.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s00414-023-03089-9","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,18]],"date-time":"2023-09-18T20:25:15Z","timestamp":1695068715000},"page":"1751-1755","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Heart weight must not be measured before dissection during autopsies"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"137","author":[{"given":"Larissa","family":"Lohner","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Christoph","family":"Sinning","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Anna Isabella","family":"Suling","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rexson","family":"Tse","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jack","family":"Garland","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Benjamin","family":"Ondruschka","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"3089_CR1","unstructured":"Mendis S, Puska P, Norrving B (2011) Global Atlas on cardiovascular disease prevention and control, WHO, Editors: WHO; World Heart Federation; World Stroke Organization"},{"key":"3089_CR2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"61","DOI":"10.1016\/j.resuscitation.2021.02.007","volume":"161","author":"JT Grasner","year":"2021","unstructured":"Grasner JT, Herlitz J, Tjelmeland IBM, Wnent J, Masterson S, Lilja G et al (2021) European Resuscitation Council Guidelines 2021: Epidemiology of cardiac arrest in Europe. 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The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Hamburg Medical Association (Application Number 2020\u201310311-BO-ff).","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Ethics approval"}},{"value":"We thank the relatives of the deceased for providing numerous consents for this study.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Consent to participate"}},{"value":"The authors have no relevant financial interests to disclose.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Conflict of interest"}}]}}