Dead Canadians Are No Longer Having Autopsies

Read: Watch '60 Minutes' Go Behind the Scenes of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'

Dead Canadians aren't receiving autopsies anymore.

The posthumous procedure, which involves examining the body's organs to find out more about the cause of death, has been around forever (it started in Ancient Egypt), but apparently it's rarely considered necessary by doctors these days.

Only around four percent of deaths (11,141 out of 246,596) in Canada resulted in autopsies in 2012, according to a Maclean's report based on Statistics Canada data; in 1991 that number was 17 percent.

The reason for the decline is physicians feel imaging technology, including CT scans and MRIs, allows them to examine bodies adequately, eliminating the need to slice and dice. Cost could also be a factor, with coroners budgets taking hits in recent years.

A CBC investigation found the BC coroner's service had the lowest autopsy rate in the country at 19 percent. Deaths that are sudden, unnatural or suspicious are reported to the coroner, and an autopsy is ordered if "cause of death cannot be established through examination of the scene, body, and history," according to BC's Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe. (Other provinces have variations of the same rules.) But one family who spoke to the CBC believes their relative, a bodybuilding doctor, may have died in a homicide that was ruled a suicide. The man was found in his home with cuts on his arms and chest. Other coroners around the province have been critical of the low autopsy rate, but claim they are short staffed.

Studies have shown that autopsies often catch misdiagnoses made by doctors that would otherwise go unnoticed. According to a 2002 US meta analysis of such studies, in one out of four cases, autopsies reveal major errors relating to diagnoses or causes of death.

"The technique [of autopsy] is millennia old, but can still teach us huge amounts," Angus Turnbull, a medical student who has studied falling autopsy rates told Maclean's.

That may be true, but if rates continue to fall, Canadians could be taking the secrets of their deaths to the grave.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.