[Clinicopathologic cases].

Abstract

The clinicopathologic conference (CPC) was introduced by Dr. Richard C. Cabot at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. early in the past century. In a short time, it became one of the most popular medical teaching tools in the world. Despite certain differences between beside diagnosis and CPC diagnosis, the latter is a valuable teaching exercise. During the past few decades, interest in CPCs has declined due to several issues: excessive concern with anatomic diagnosis at the expense of molecular pathogenesis and pathophysiology; emphasis on uncommon diseases; the pathologist being considered an adversary who enjoys demonstrating clinical discussion errors; autopsies failing to reveal abnormalities in physiopathologic disorders and it is not rare to fail to reveal cause of death, and the fact that very few cases are true diagnostic problems, due to advances in diagnostic techniques. In addition, with the decline of interest in autopsies during the past years, in several CPCs, many final diagnosis is performed by biopsy, laboratory tests, or imaging studies. The ideal CPC case to conserve the educational role of this exercise is an autopsy case with adequated clinical, laboratory and/or imaging studies.