pathology
- 1The study of the nature of disease, including its causes, processes, development, and consequences, now practiced mainly as a branch of clinical and academic medicine.
A solid grounding in pathology lets a physician explain not only what a disease is but why it progresses the way it does.
Her work in pathology centers on how years of chronic inflammation gradually damage the heart.
Note
Its name spells this broad sense out: French pathologie, from Greek páthos, "disease," plus -logía, "study of." Most uses now narrow it to the clinical laboratory specialty or the academic research behind that work. Keep it apart from an abnormality itself: when a pathology is the disease rather than the study of it, pathosis can stand in for the word.
- 2The clinical specialty that provides doctors with microscope examinations and other laboratory services, such as the analysis of cells and tissue samples.
After medical school she chose pathology over surgery because she loved working at the microscope.
The pathology report confirmed that the tumor was benign.
Note
Hospital pathology divides its work by what goes under the microscope: histology and histopathology examine thin sections of tissue, cytology and cytopathology look at individual cells, and cytometry measures and sorts cells, usually by instrument. Patients rarely see any of this directly; it reaches them as a pathology report sent back to the doctor who took the sample.
- 3Any departure from a healthy or normal structure or function, such as an illness, an abnormality, or a malformation.
The MRI revealed no pathology in the knee, so the team cleared him to play.
The novel traces the quiet social pathology of a town that refuses to talk about its past.
Similarabnormality, illness, disease
Note
Greek páthos, disease, plus -logía, study of, made a name for a science, and here the name has slid onto its subject: the abnormality itself. Pathosis is the stricter word, but clinicians say no discernible pathology without a second thought. The sense also travels beyond the body, so a social pathology is a sickness in the way a community behaves.
- 4Any of several related life-science disciplines that study the nature and causes of disease in living organisms, building the knowledge that practical applications depend on.
Advances in plant pathology have helped breeders develop wheat that resists rust.
The university's veterinary pathology program trains researchers to study disease in livestock and wildlife.
Note
A qualifier usually names the host: plant pathology, vertebrate pathology, veterinary pathology. The questions stay the same from field to field (what causes a disease, how it develops, what it does) while the patients change, from rust in wheat to infections in livestock and wildlife, and the practical payoff goes to breeders, farmers and vets.
Practice
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Origin
From French pathologie, from Ancient Greek πάθος (páthos, "disease") and -λογία (-logía, "study of").