Cancer diagnosis is often missed

doi:10.1136/bmj.317.7165.1033a

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Janice Hopkins Tanne

New York

Lethal cancers were not diagnosed or were misdiagnosed before death in 44% of cases, according to a 10 year retrospective study of postmortem examinations at a US academic medical centre.

This discrepancy calls into serious question all public health statistics based on death certificate information, as well as clinical decisions, according to Dr George Lundberg, a pathologist and editor of JAMA.Dr Elizabeth Burton and colleagues reviewed …