I have posted a new autopsy manual page on the spleen. It will need continued work, but I think it provides an atlas that will be useful in the stillbirth project. In relation to the physiologic mechanisms of death, I am interested in the weight and how it is affected by the balance of sinus congestion with possible decreased T lymphocyte population with stress induced cortisol. This would require an area measurement of the percentage of T cells times the spleen weight that could then be correlated with thymic weight, assuming a negligible difference in blood versus tissue density.
Over the years, I have found rare lesions like hamartoma and HLH that I wish could have been evaluated genetically. Perhaps as such studies become less expensive, or even covered by maternal insurance, it will be possible to pursue such cases.
obstetrical pathology 
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