In common medical practice, general pathology is mostly concerned with analyzing known clinical abnormalities that are markers or precursors for both infectious and non-infectious disease, and is conducted by experts in one of two major specialties, anatomical pathology and clinical pathology. A physician practicing pathology is called a pathologist.Īs a field of general inquiry and research, pathology addresses components of disease: cause, mechanisms of development ( pathogenesis), structural alterations of cells (morphologic changes), and the consequences of changes (clinical manifestations). Idiomatically, 'a pathology' may also refer to the predicted or actual progression of particular diseases (as in the statement 'the many different forms of cancer have diverse pathologies', in which case a more proper choice of word would be ' pathophysiologies'), and the affix pathy is sometimes used to indicate a state of disease in cases of both physical ailment (as in cardiomyopathy) and psychological conditions (such as psychopathy). However, when used in the context of modern medical treatment, the term is often used in a narrower fashion to refer to processes and tests that fall within the contemporary medical field of 'general pathology', an area which includes a number of distinct but inter-related medical specialties that diagnose disease, mostly through analysis of tissue and human cell samples. The word pathology also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices.

Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury.

Pathology meaning