The word PATHOLOGY is derived from two Greek words

-The word PATHOLOGY is derived from two Greek words-

- ‘Pathos’ meaning suffering and 

- ‘Logos’ meaning study.

Pathology is a study of a structural, biochemical and functional changes in cells, tissues and organs that underlie disease.

Clinical pathology:

Clinical pathology is a medical specialty that is concerned with the diagnosis of disease based on the laboratory analysis of bodily fluids such as blood and urine, as well as tissues, using the tools of biochemistry, clinical microbiology, hematology, immunology and molecular pathology. e.g. PCR(polymerase chain reaction). 

Pathophysiology:

Pathology is the branch of medical sciences that treats the essential nature of disease, especially the changes of structure and function in tissues and organs of the body that cause or are caused by disease. 

Pathophysiology relates the effects of diseases to the disruption of normal physiological functions, e.g. the pathophysiology of essential hypertension involves the raised peripheral vascular resistance and possibly an expansion of intravascular fluid volume.

Studies of pathophysiology are concerned with the investigation of biological processes that are directly related to disease processes of physical, mental, or psychophysiological conditions and disorders (e.g., alterations in the endocrine system, in certain neurotransmitters, or inflammatory parameters related to the activity of the immune system). Thus, pathophysiological research aims at identifying biological markers and mechanisms for predicting and explaining disease processes in terms of etiology and pathogenesis. 

Pathophysiology is formally considered as a subdiscipline with in physiology.

. Basically, pathophysiology is the disordered physiological processes associated with injury or disease (the immune system). This area studies how the body reacts to injury or fights off disease.

. The functional changes associates with or resulting from disease or injury.

e.g. inflammation in response to an injury

Importance of pathophysiology:

. As a bridge not between the basic science and diseases but various basic sciences.

. Enabling the students, clinicians and other practitioners to under stand why and how diseases develop and various clinical manifestations appear, and what are the fundamental mechanisms.

Major points:

. The general concepts

. The etiology and pathogenesis

. The alterations in metabolism and functions

. The principles for the prevention and therapies

How to Learn Pathophysiology? 

. Grasp the major points 

. Use dialectical thinking and methods

. Selectively review related knowledge learned previously

. Pay attention to experimental courses

. Pay attention to clinical practices

Health and Disease:

·    Health- complete physical, mental and social well being not merely an absence of disease.

·    Disease- is expression of discomfort due to structural or functional an abnormality.

·    Illness- is the reaction of individual to disease in the form of symptoms.

Concept of Disease:

. Disease is referred as aberrant manifestation of deregulated homeostasis caused by harmful agents.

. The development of a disease is definitely a pathologic process with a characteristic set of signs and symptoms involved in the whole body or any of its parts.

. The term disease literally means “without ease” (uneasiness), when something is wrong with bodily function.

. The term disease broadly refers to any condition that impairs the normal functioning of the body.

. Diseases are associated with dysfunction of the body’s normal homeostatic processes.