Abstract

Advances in modern medicine and more accurate and precise diagnostic procedures have been considered to be the main reason for the reduction in autopsy rates. However, there is still a discrepancy between clinical and autopsy diagnoses. This retrospective study, designed as a cross-sectional study, included a sample of 931 patients who died at the Clinical Hospital Centre ‘Zemun’. We analysed sex, age, length of hospitalisation and clinical and post-mortem diagnoses, including the discrepancies between them. In 314 (34%) cases, there was complete agreement between the clinical and autopsy diagnoses, complete disagreement in the same percentage and incomplete agreement in 303 (32%) cases. In people aged >60 years, the risk of misdiagnosis was 2.5-fold higher than in the those aged <60 years (odds ratio (OR)=2.522, p<0.001), while the influence of sex on the risk of misdiagnosis was not statistically significant (OR=0.981, p>0.05). An increase in the number of autopsies would be one of the best methods to make discrepancies between clinical and post-mortem diagnoses visible, and a good method for continuous evaluation of diagnostic tests, as well as for providing a wider perspective on presentations of different clinical conditions.

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