Cause of death and the autopsy rate in an elderly population.
Autopsy
Autopsy rate
Cause of death
Death certificate
Quality of healthcare
Journal
Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology
ISSN: 1432-2307
Titre abrégé: Virchows Arch
Pays: Germany
ID NLM: 9423843
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
Dec 2023
Dec 2023
Historique:
received:
16
02
2023
accepted:
22
05
2023
revised:
12
05
2023
medline:
7
12
2023
pubmed:
3
6
2023
entrez:
3
6
2023
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Autopsy rates are declining, while major discrepancies between autopsies and clinical diagnoses remain. Still, little is known about the impact of suspected underlying diseases, for example, a diagnosis of cancer, on the autopsy rate. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between the clinical cause of death, a history of cancer, and the medical autopsy rate using data from the Netherlands Cohort Study on Diet and Cancer (NLCS), a large prospective cohort study with a long follow-up. The NLCS is a prospective study initiated in 1986 and includes 120,852 persons (58,279 males and 62,573 females), 55-69 years of age at the time of enrollment. The NLCS was linked with the Dutch Nationwide Pathology Databank (PALGA), the Dutch Population Register (GBA), the Netherlands Cancer Registry, and the causes of death registry (Statistics Netherlands). If applicable, the 95% confidence intervals were calculated. During the follow-up of the NLCS, 59,760 deaths were recorded by linkage with the GBA from 1991 until 2009. Of these, a medical autopsy was performed on 3736 deceased according to linkage with PALGA, resulting in an overall autopsy rate of 6.3%. Major variations in the autopsy rate were observed according to the cause of death. The autopsy rate increased according to the number of contributing causes of death. Lastly, a diagnosis of cancer affected the autopsy rate. The clinical cause of death and a history of cancer both influenced the medical autopsy rate in a large national cohort. The insight this study provides may help clinicians and pathologists counteracting the further downfall of the medical autopsy.
Identifiants
pubmed: 37269366
doi: 10.1007/s00428-023-03571-0
pii: 10.1007/s00428-023-03571-0
pmc: PMC10238230
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
865-872Informations de copyright
© 2023. The Author(s).
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