Comparison between pre- and post-mortem diagnoses in a consecutive series of patients

The medical diagnoses of 217 successively dead patients were compared with their postmortem findings. The rate of correct diagnoses was 67.8%, and that of false-negative diagnoses was 22.1%. In a corresponding earlier study (1964-75) carried out in the same department the rates were 35.1% and 55.6%, respectively, whereas the percentages of false-positive diagnoses remained the same. The considerable difference between older and younger age groups demonstrated in the previous studies was not found now. The improvement is believed to be due to the introduction of the new imaging, computerized tomography, ultrasonography, gammagraphy, and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography techniques.