Pathognomonic
A sign or symptom that is so characteristic of a disease that it can be used to make a diagnosis. For example, Koplik spots in the mouth opposite the first and second upper molars are pathognomonic of measles.
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1. Indicative of or caused by disease, as in a pathologic fracture, pathologic tissue, or pathologic process. 2. Pertaining to pathology, the branch of medicine that studies disease and especially the essential nature of disease.
- Pathologist, speech-language
Speech-language pathologist.
- Pathology
The study of disease. Pathology has been defined as “that branch of medicine which treats of the essential nature of disease.” The word “pathology” comes from the Greek words “pathos” meaning “disease” and “logos” meaning “a treatise” = a treatise of disease. The word “pathology” is sometimes misused to mean disease as, for example, “he […]
- Pathophysiology
Deranged function in an individual or an organ due to a disease. For example, a pathophysiologic alteration is a change in function as distinguished from a structural defect.
- pathy
A suffix derived from the Greek “pathos” meaning “suffering or disease” that serves as a suffix in many terms including myopathy (muscle disease), neuropathy (nerve disease), retinopathopathy (disease of the retina), sympathy (literally, suffering together), etc. The corresponding prefix is patho-, as in pathobiology and pathology.