11. Pathology

Overall scores

These autopsy reports have been assessed against the Royal College of Pathologists guidelines ⁴². 80% of the autopsies appeared to have been performed and documented satisfactorily or better, but only 50% were overall scored so, mainly because of the lack of clinico-pathological summary, lack of histology, and poor formulation of cause of death.

Concerning clinical relevance of the autopsy, in only one case did the autopsy reveal an unsuspected clinical pathology that might have altered management if known: the patient was presumed to have malignancy, but in fact had ischaemic heart disease.