The term Pathological is widely used in medicine and refers to something that is not normal and could be caused by some type of disease, it derives from the word Pathology that comes from the Greek and means the study of diseases.
When referring to something pathological, doctors do not refer to the specific origin of the condition, but rather indicate that there is a process, condition, finding or symptom that may have its origin in a disease. This word is not used only for physical findings, there may also be pathological emotions, behaviors and attitudes.
In order to establish the condition of pathology, it is necessary to know the state of normality or health. During the study of a patient, a systematic review should be carried out by systems to be able to identify findings outside the normality that are known as signs, these often go unnoticed by the patient or occur without any type of manifestation or symptom, such is the case nodular lesions, spots, enlarged viscera of the abdomen, heart murmurs, sensitivity disorders, among others.
As a complement to the clinical examination, the complementary studies, known as paraclinical, can show pathological findings, that is, values outside the normal limits, this occurs in laboratory studies or in images such as X-rays, ultrasounds, tomography, magnetic resonance and can also be evidenced by studies that evaluate the function of a structure such as electrocardiograms.
Identifying a condition or pathological state opens the door to an investigation process that seeks to identify the exact cause of the problem, which is known as diagnosis, which is the critical step necessary to establish the appropriate treatment and the behavior to follow.
In medicine there is a medical specialty dedicated to the study of diseases or pathologies, this specialty is Pathology or Pathological Anatomy, it is carried out by Pathologists, these specialists are not clinical since they do not deal directly with patients, they work in laboratories and are dedicated to the study or investigation of their tissues both macroscopically and microscopically to look for diseases, their object of study is biopsies and tissue samples by various routes such as smears and punctures in living patients and autopsies in deceased patients.
Forensic medicine is a branch of Pathology, it seeks to establish the causes of death, sometimes it is during the autopsy when the correct diagnosis of the disease or condition that ended the life of the patient is made.
