BMJ  2004;328:165-166 (17 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7432.165-b

Letter

Death of the teaching autopsy

Advances in technology have not reduced the value of the autopsy

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—One of the proposed reasons for the death of the autopsy described by O'Grady is an increased confidence in new diagnostic tools, particularly modern imaging techniques.1 2 Surprisingly, the rate of misdiagnoses detected at autopsy (about 40%) did not improve from 1960-70, before the advent of computed tomography, ultrasound, nuclear scanning, etc, to 1980, after these technologies became widely used.3

In 2003, of 53 autopsy series identified, 42 reported major errors (clinically missed diagnoses involving a primary cause of death) and 37 reported class I errors (those most likely to have affected patient outcome).4 The median error rate was 23.5% (range 4.1%-49.8%) for major errors and 9.0% (0-20.7%) for class I errors.

Advances in imaging and diagnostic technology have not reduced the value of the autopsy. Autopsies could serve as indicators of overall performance of care systems over time or in comparison with other systems.5 Autopsies also have an . . . [Full text of this article]

-->

Gema Frühbeck, clinical scientist

Department of Endocrinology, Medical School, University of Navarra, 31008 Pamplona, Spain gfruhbeck@unav.es


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Death of the teaching autopsy
Gregory O'Grady
BMJ 2003 327: 802-803. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Sheppard, M. N (2004). Payment for coroners' postmortem examinations: Financial gain is pathetic.... BMJ 328: 406-406 [Full text]  
  • Rose, S. (2004). Payment for coroners' postmortem examinations: ... and not part of the equation. BMJ 328: 406-406 [Full text]  
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ