Resumen

BARREIRO RAMOS, Héctor; BARREIRO PENARANDA, Adriana; FERNANDEZ VIERA, Eugenio  y  MARRERO MARTIN, Ofelia. Death certificate of the adult. Rev Cubana Med Gen Integr [online]. 2004, vol.20, n.4. ISSN 0864-2125.

The certification of death causes in spite of being one of the oldest procedures in our practice is not well managed. However, nobody doubts about the importance of a correct certification from many points of view. Although papers referring to the right making of the death certificates of the adult have been published, there are innumerable difficulties to obtain a logical sequence of death causes. Taking all this into account, we decided to make a review of this topic and to provide a material to help mainly physicians and 5th-year medical students to make the new death certificate of the adult correctly. We have focused the effort on two fundamental aspects. The distinction of the main causes of death and their sequence. To this end, we have collected information of the Tenth Classification of Diseases and other publications related to this topic, since other aspects may be thoroughly analyzed by the bibliography annotated in the text and other sources.

Palabras clave : Basic, intermediate and direct cuase of death; sequence; certificate.