(WXYZ) - The more doctors are able to do for patients while they’re living – the less they are called upon to perform autopsies once they die. But that may be a mistake.
WATCH STEPHEN CLARK'S REPORT IN THE VIDEO PLAYER ON THE RIGHTWhen Gilbert Petz died, his five children knew the cause of death – complications of dementia. But one daughter who worked in a lab knew her father could still provide his offspring with valuable information.
She told us depending on which type of dementia , some of them can be inherited can run in familes. “So this had a bearing on us the children of Gilbert Petz, and on our children.”
Dr Mitual Amin performs autopsies at Beaumont Hospital. Autopsies are performed on only about 10 percent of in-patients who die there.
“It used to be much higher. It used to be 30 – 40% twenty or thirty years back,” he told us.
A national investigation into the death records of 4-point-9 million people shows that autopsies are performed in only 8.2% of cases. Here in Michigan that number is a bit higher at 9.5%.
That means the listed cause of death may often be wrong. Reporters from Scripps Howard News Service found that when there was not enough information, the cause was usually just listed as heart disease.
And it’s not rare for autopsies to turn up surprises, according to Dr. Amin, “The total number is under 10% that we find something major. Now another 30% we found other causes that were not known but would have been important down the line.”
For Gilbert Petz’s family, the autopsy provided reassuring news
“We lucked out and it was not the type that was inherited and now we knew we had a name for the type of dementia and we knew our family was safe.”
