title: The value of autopsies in neurosurgery.
abstract: Many previous studies have reported the value of autopsy in assessing clinical diagnostic accuracy. None of them however, assessed the value of autopsies in a specific clinical speciality. The authors reviewed the findings of 123 consecutive neurosurgical autopsies with reference to the premortem clinical diagnoses. The study showed that 7% of cases had a wrong clinical diagnosis and in 9% of cases the clinical diagnosis was incomplete. Only in 5% of all cases knowledge of the autopsy findings would have led to a change in management and outcome. The autopsies also confirmed that 11% of cases died following a surgical complication and in 3% of cases the primary cause of death was non-neurosurgical. The latter was a previously unrecognised finding in 8% of autopsies. The autopsy will remain a valuable means of clinical audit and the increasing financial pressures to reduce the number of autopsies should be resisted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, College of Medicine, King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jamjoom
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Moss
authors.forename: Z A
authors.initials: ZA
authors.lastname: Jamjoom
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stranjalis
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stanjalis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001344:Autopsy; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D009493:Neurosurgery; D012189:Retrospective Studies