[The clinical autopsy--obsolete?]

Abstract

Autopsy is important for clinicians in quality control of medicine, as a teaching tool, for collection of new postmortem data and to stimulate research. Discrepancies between pre- and post-mortem diagnosis does not necessarily mean clinical error. Although modern technology may add important information, the process of clinical reasoning is based on scientific knowledge, clinical experience and thus, decisions of probability. To improve quality of medicine, systematic control of the outcome is required. Autopsy has been shown to reduce the rate of severe medical errors and thus is an important tool for the quality control. In addition, relatives may get new insight in the severety of the disease or maybe reveal even a hereditary illness. In the 21st century, autopsy still is an important performance measure and should be promoted.