A new study has found a substantial discrepancy between the number of cancers detected during life and those found in autopsies. Despite advances in medical technology, the disparity between the diagnosis of cancer before and after death was 44 per cent, similar to that found in studies conducted in earlier decades, said the authors. The study which involved 1,105 autopsies performed from 1986 to 1995 at the Medical Center of Louisiana in New Orleans, found that 100 patients had developed 111 cancers that doctors had either not detected or misdiagnosed.