Table 3

Percentage of diagnostic errors identified at necropsy in previously published postmortem studies 1919–98

Ref.	First author	Year	Percentage of major discrepancies/alternative cause of death (%)
24	Karsner	1919	68
25	Swartout	1940	21
26	Wallgren	1945	49
27	Munck	1952	20
28	Borris	1952	33
29	James	1955	48
30	Gruver	1957	6
31	Justin-Besencon	1963	30
32	Otterland	1964	28
33	Wilson	1966	47
34	Heasman	1966	55
35	Holler	1970	3
36	Britton	1974	30
13	Burrows	1975	11.9
6	Cameron	1980	42
9	Anderson	1984	10
14	Kircher	1985	29
37	Stevanovic	1986	29
38	Battle	1987	33.8
7	Ferdandez-Segoviano	1988	10
39	Karwinski	1989	12
40	Carvalho	1991	36
41	Stambouly	1993	28
42	Teo	1993	54
43	McKelvie	1993	12
44	Veress	1993	27
45	Veress	1994	15
46	Szende	1994	43
47	Manzini	1995	42
48	Goldstein	1996	12
49	Kendrey	1996	59
50	Zehr	1997	20
51	Blosser	1998	21
52	Burton	1998	44
53	Ermenc	1999	13.5