Autopsy in critical illness: is it obsolete?
-
Correspondence: Margaret S Herridge margaret.herridge@uhn.on.ca
Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto, Pulmonary and Critical Care, Toronto General Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Critical Care 2003, 7:407-408 doi:10.1186/cc2378
See related Research article: http://ccforum.com/content/7/6/R129
Published: 26 September 2003Abstract
The autopsy continues to have important implications for patient management in critical illness. It is not obsolete. Autopsy data help us to track shifts in disease prevalence over time and to heighten surveillance for serious diagnoses that are commonly missed. These data help us to identify important contributors to death that may be remediated through quality assurance and control programs. In discrete patient subsets, information from autopsies may reinforce the degree of certainty surrounding end-of-life decision-making.