Lisa Marie Presley’s cause of death has not yet been determined after an initial autopsy examination, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner.
“Presley was examined on Jan. 14 and the cause of death was deferred. Deferred means that after an autopsy, a cause of death has not been determined and the medical examiner is requesting more investigation into the death, including additional studies. Once the tests/studies come back, the doctor evaluates the case again and makes the cause of death determination,” Sarah Ardalani, a spokesperson with the coroner's office, told CNN.
The singer and songwriter died last week after being hospitalized following an apparent cardiac arrest. She was 54.
On Wednesday, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained that there could be a multitude of reasons for the deferral.
“There are things on an initial autopsy, trauma, stroke, significant infections, blood clots, pulmonary embolism,” he said. “If you see those and they’re obvious within the initial physical autopsy, they may come back with a cause of death. But there are things that are deferred. ... They may want to evaluate more medical records and get more history."