Unembalmed Human Cadavers

Prepared by: Michael J. Huerkamp, DVM, Diplomate ACLAM
Date: June 8, 1999

Agent: Unembalmed human cadavers

Unembalmed human cadavers may harbor numerous pathogens such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Hepatitis A virus, Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Hepatitis C virus (HCV), Hepatitis E virus, and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. The risk of infection from needle stick is about 1:4 for HBV and 1:500 for HIV. Unembalmed human cadavers may be used in surgery training laboratories done in DAR operating rooms.

Potential Hazard: The risk of occupationally-acquired HIV is very low and is primarily through exposure to infected blood from humans. HIV and HBV should be assumed to be present in all blood or clinical specimens contaminated with blood and in unfixed tissues or organs (except intact skin) from human cadavers and on any devices coming into direct contact with any of these materials. Accidental parenteral inoculation, especially of nerve tissues and including formalin-fixed specimens, is a clear hazard for spongiform encephalopathy.

Recommended Precautions: Personnel must wear gowns, latex gloves, goggles, shoe covers and hair nets when in operating rooms with human cadavers. Sharps must never be reused and must be discarded in a sharps container. Personnel working with human cadavers must be vaccinated against Hepatitis B virus. Vaccination against Hepatitis A is recommended, but not mandatory. Vaccines are not available for HIV, HCV, Hepatitis E or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Surgical instruments in contact with human cadavers must be cleaned of gross organic debris with soap and water and disinfected by soaking for an appropriate time in glutaraldehyde.

References:Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories, 3rd edition, CDC-NIH, 1993, pp. 106-7, 116-22.