The Importance of Pathology

Pathology is an incredibly important field in medicine, as it focuses on the causes and development of diseases, as well as how these affect health and the human body. Doctors would be practically crippled in doing their jobs if they did not have pathologists or pathology laboratory services backing them up. Here are a few reasons why pathology is so crucial:

Testing for HPV

If you receive an abnormal Pap smear result and your doctor tells you that it may be due to an infection with HPV (human papillomavirus), you may start to worry about what it means for your health. You may have heard that HPV increases a woman's risk of cervical cancer, but an abnormal test result doesn't mean that you have cervical cancer now. HPV is a common virus, and four out of five people will be diagnosed with the virus in their lives. Most women who have it do not necessarily develop cervical cancer.

Preventive Health Screenings are Important

The concept of managing health often involves practices such as regular exercise and eating right. However, regular visits to your doctor for preventive care are an integral part maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Regular check-ups are important—the earlier a doctor can detect and diagnose a condition, the easier it generally is to treat. Below are common health screenings recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). Please talk to your physician for more information.

Three Common Types of Skin Biopsies

Cancer, inflammations, and abnormal growths on the skin are commonly diagnosed by a procedure called skin biopsy. This procedure involves the removal of a small skin tissue sample and its examination under microscope. Most skin biopsies involve minor surgery, and may require local anesthesia, although they usually don't require hospital stay.

There are several types of skin biopsies. A few examples are given below:

What is a Dermatopathologist?

A dermatopathologist is a medical doctor who specializes in diagnosing skin disorders under a microscope. His subspecialty is a combination of both dermatology, which is the diagnosis and treatment of skin, nail, and hair diseases, and pathology, which focuses on the identification of diseases. Dermatopathologists are like detectives, who need to make microscopic observations of skin cell and tissue samples, as well as evaluate the information given to them by the physician who performed the biopsy, to make a definitive diagnosis.

Correlation of Dermatology and Pathology

Dermatopathology is a combined specialty of dermatology and surgical pathology which focuses on skin diseases at a microscopic and cellular level. Most Dermatopathologists have been primarily trained in dermatology, and they usually work with dermatologists. The role of the dermatologist in this practice is to recognize skin diseases in relation to their appearances and associated symptoms. However, there are cases when the criteria provided is not enough to arrive at a conclusive diagnosis, so biopsies are taken so they can be examined microscopically by a trained Dermatopathologist in order to render an accurate diagnosis.

Basic Facts on Anatomic Pathology

Anatomic pathology is a branch of pathology that examines anatomical specimens to have more information about the process of diseases and cause of deaths. When it comes to cancer, anatomic pathologists examine biopsy samples that surgeons take from their patients in order to find out if the sample is cancerous or not.

There are different sub-specialties in anatomic pathology. The major ones are: dermpatopathology (examination and study of the skin), neuropathology (examination of brain tissue) and cytopathology (study of cells in samples). Others specialties are molecular pathology, osteopathology, and forensic pathology.

Pathologists: The Doctors of Doctors

Although oncologists are doctors whose expertise lies in diagnosing, understanding, and treating cancer, many of the principles that they use are linked to pathology. In fact, pathologists are sometimes called the “doctors' doctors” because their specialized knowledge in the diagnosis, cause, development, and characteristics of disease is applied in various branches of the medical field and is relied upon by treating physicians in order to determine treatment options for their patient.