Accuracy of death certificates in the diagnosis of alcoholic liver cirrhosis.

In 108 patients with alcoholic liver disease who died during a 10-year follow-up, the diagnoses from the liver biopsies were compared with that from the Death Certificates. Data show that the currently used ICD-9 category of cirrhosis with or without mention of alcohol has a 47.2% chance of missing the diagnosis of cirrhosis. On the other hand when the mention of liver disease in the Death Certificate is used for the diagnosis of cirrhosis, the percentage of undiagnosed cirrhosis decreases to 19.4% (p less than 0.0001).