How can we reduce the number of coroner autopsies? Lessons from Scotland and the Dundee initiative.

Currently the medicolegal dissection rate for England and Wales is 22% (110,000 coronial autopsies for 500,000 deaths per annum), yet there is a general lack of evidence about the utility of and justification for such a high level of activity, which is between double and triple the rate in other jurisdictions. The government is currently consulting on how to reduce the numbers, and the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 is permissive of external examinations as an alternative to dissections. We describe the philosophy and practice of the Scottish system of postmortem external examinations, and the 20-year experience of a local initiative to maximize use of such external examinations.

[Screening for endometrial carcinoma in a group at risk].

In a population-based study 923 asymptomatic women with diabetes aged 40 to 70 years were investigated by aspiration curettage. The samples were evaluated histologically. During the initial screening 4 histologically proved endometrial cancers were diagnosed.

[On the therapy of uterine cervix carcinoma in situ].

It is reported of 607 cases of uterine cervix carcinoma in situ from the years 1963 to 1977. During this period, the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures as well as the histological preparation technique have advanced. -- 75% of the cases were primarily conized.

[Comparative colposcopic, cytological and histological studies of the uterine cervix during pregnancy].

The suspected findings, of colposcopic and cytologic cervix uteri in the pregravidity, was reported. Among 5852 patients, who primarily were directed in the clinic for interruption, 63 of them were examined because of their suspected colposcopic results and 3 cases of them were examined because of their suspected cytologic results, at the same time a detailed histological clarifications of their portio during the interruption were made. About 30,8% of the cases were in preinvasive or invasive stages, which were histologically clarified and precarcinogenic treatment of the patients was carried out.