What is virtopsy and what are its benefits?

[Dr. Fowler]: Virtopsy is obviously just 2 words which have been put together and it really is a virtual autopsy. What we're doing there is we're trying to get the same amount of information from a deceased human being without actually having to make an incision on the body and therefore leaving the body completely in tact. On a day to day basis the immediate benefits of bringing Virtopsy into the office would be the ability to take certain cases that we are forced to autopsy now, we would be able to scan them in six minutes, return them to the family and therefore not have to deal with those cases in the autopsy room. We would now be able to bring a much larger number through and use the emergency room or trauma room for internal triaging, run them through and screen out those that do need to go on to an autopsy definitively and those that definitively do not.

When one looks at the cost of the equipment necessary for doing a virtopsy you are looking well in excess of a million dollars for one of these high speed CT scanners and so one gasps when you look at that particular potential capital cost; however there are 2 things that one looks at on a daily basis when you have to consider that piece of equipment. One is that initial capital cost and the second is you're operating costs. Right now each pathologist is a very, very expensive staff person to employ and because of that, we limit the number autopsies that we do to maximize the cost benefit that we get out of a pathologist. In real dollar amount it is equivalent to the salary of about 6 or 7 forensic pathologists for 1 year so it would certainly pay for itself in 2 to 3 years fairly easily and therefore it's not difficult to rationalize that that capital expense is one that is going to be one very, very easy to deal with. So on the face of it, it's a problem, but I think when you really look at it from a practical perspective it's a necessity and quite frankly we're looking at that particular issue right now.