In Defense of Clinical Autopsy and Its Practice in Cuba.

There has been a notable decrease in the global practice of clinical autopsy; the rate has fallen to below 10%, even in high-income countries. This is attributed to several causes, including increased costs, overreliance on modern diagnostic techniques, cultural and religious factors, the emergence of new infectious diseases and negative attitudes on the part of doctors, even pathologists. Alternative methods to autopsy in postmortem studies have been developed based on imaging, endoscopy and biopsy (all quite expensive).