Abstract
Death certificate inaccuracy is of major concern both in the public health domain and in individual health care, since it may yield untruthful data on the incidence, prevalence, and lethality of medical entities, and may hamper prophylactic measures among those who share, with the deceased, the common genetic, environmental, or behavioral risk factors. An effective way to settle this haziness relies on the increase of autopsy performance, increasing manifold the exactitude as well as facing surprising diagnoses. In this report, the authors present the case of a middle-aged woman who sought medical care because of back pain accompanied by weight loss. She died suddenly and unexpectedly in the Emergency Room. In this case, due to the unusual clinical presentation and the patient’s unexpected death, the causa mortis would not have been elucidated if the autopsy had not been undertaken.
Highlights
Death certificate inaccuracy is of major concern both in the public health domain and in individual health care, since it may yield untruthful data on the incidence, prevalence, and lethality of medical entities, and may hamper prophylactic measures among those who share, with the deceased, the common genetic, environmental, or behavioral risk factors
The microorganism S. gallolyticus, previously known as a subspecies of Streptococcus bovis biotype I,1 is a common cause of infectious endocarditis in individuals with colonic neoplasia
In a recent systematic review and meta-analysis,2 64% of the patients with S. bovis endocarditis simultaneously presented gastrointestinal disease, only 6% of all infectious endocarditides are caused by this pathogen,[3] which is associated with a low mortality rate when compared with other bacteria.[4]
Summary
Death certificate inaccuracy is of major concern both in the public health domain and in individual health care, since it may yield untruthful data on the incidence, prevalence, and lethality of medical entities, and may hamper prophylactic measures among those who share, with the deceased, the common genetic, environmental, or behavioral risk factors. The authors present the case of a middle-aged woman who sought medical care because of back pain accompanied by weight loss. She died suddenly and unexpectedly in the Emergency Room. The patient started complaining of pain in the left leg She was re-examined, and, in the face of an unchanged physical examination, codeine was prescribed. The patient’s condition evolved and she began to complain of uneasiness, anxiety, and shortness of breath Her heart rate rose to 120 beats per minute, and on auscultation a pericardial friction bruit was detected. She was referred to the pathology service for an autopsy
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