Those changes that can be seen with the naked eye are called gross morphologic changes and those that are seen under the microscope are called microscopic changes.īoth the gross and the microscopic morphologic changes may only be seen in that disease, i.e. The structural changes in the organ can be seen with the naked eye or they may only be seen under the microscope. The morphologic changes refer to the structural alterations in cells or tissues that occur following the pathogenetic mechanisms. Pathogenesis leads to morphologic changes. The pathogenetic mechanisms could take place in the latent or incubation period. Pathogenesis means the mechanism through which the cause operates to produce the pathological and clinical manifestations.

There are two major classes of etiologic factors: genetic and acquired (infectious, nutritional, chemical, physical, etc).

Knowledge or discovery of the primary cause remains the backbone on which a diagnosis can be made, a disease understood, and a treatment developed. If the cause of the disease is unknown it is called idiopathic. If the cause of a disease is known it is called primary etiology. Functional derangements and clinical significance.Įtiology of a disease means the cause of the disease. Pathology gives explanations of a disease by studying the following four aspects of the disease. Diseases may, in turn, be defined as an abnormal variation in structure or function of any part of the body. ‘Patho’ means disease and ‘logy’ means study, therefore pathology is a scientific study of disease. The word pathology came from the Latin words “patho” and “logy”. Pathology is the study of disease by scientific methods. Functional derangements and clinical significance.

Whats pathology