[The most severe chronic organ findings in official public health autopsies--a medico-sociologic contribution].

At the Vienna Institute, in the year 1986, 79 carcinoma findings were recorded in 1736 cases of natural death. The most common were carcinomas of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Seventeen unidentified tumors were found to have been the cause of death. Public health autopsies, therefore, contribute to the clarification of tumor disease and thus to cancer statistics. Although diagnosed fatal cancer cases correspond to only 0.33% of all cancer deaths in Vienna, the question arises why a patient with very advanced cancer is not under medical care and why the affliction is revealed only in autopsy, the purpose of which is to elucidate sudden, unexpected deaths. The comparatively few individual cases should nevertheless give cause for reflection and are discussed from a medicosociological view, taking into consideration the statistical and epidemiological data relating to cancer diseases.