Abe Shuntaro, Yuki Takeo, Katsuyama Hironobu, Saijoh Kiyofumi, Sakai Fumiyo, Kusama Tamiko, Yamamoto Hidetaka, Fukunaga Tatsushige
Department of Forensic Medicine and Sciences, Mie University School of Medicine, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu 514-8507, Japan.
Leg Med (Tokyo). 2003 Mar;5 Suppl 1:S344-6. doi: 10.1016/s1344-6223(02)00168-2.
In Japan, the medical examiner system was enforced only in three large cities, Tokyo metropolitan, Osaka and Kobe Cities. In other areas without this system, autopsy rates are much lower than in the areas with the system. Since the population of the aged (>/=65 years old) has been increasing recently, the subjects for medicolegal investigations seem to be also increasing. In the present study, between Mie Prefecture and those three Medical Examiner's Offices in Japan, the inquest results during the 5-year-period from 1996 to 2000, especially on the aged, were compared. The aged accounted for approximately 50% of all inquest cases in those areas. Autopsy rates for the aged were 16, 24 and 75% in Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe, respectively. Seventy-five to eighty percent was classified in deaths due to disease. Seventy to seventy-five percent of death due to disease was subclassified in circulatory diseases. The highest incidence of vascular diseases was observed in Kobe whose autopsy ratio was the highest. On the contrary, ambiguous causes of deaths, e.g. heart failure or unknown, were still frequent in Mie Prefecture.
