Chapter 2: Introduction

Question 1

What are the four aspects of a disease process that form the core of pathology?

Answer 1

Etiology, pathogenesis, morphology, and clinical manifestations

Question 2

Although there are myriad factors that cause disease, all can be grouped into two broad classes. What are these classes?

Answer 2

Genetic and environmental

Question 3

What does pathogenesis refer to?

Answer 3

The sequence of molecular, biochemical, and cellular events that lead to the development of the disease

Question 4

What does morphologic changes refer to?

Answer 4

The structural alterations in cells or tissues that are characteristic of a disease and hence diagnostic of an etiologic process

Question 5

What are 7 causes of cell injury?

Answer 5

Oxygen deprivation, physical agents, chemical agents and drugs, infectious agents, immunological reactions, genetic abnormalities, and nutritional imbalances

Question 6

What is the stain that colors myocardium magenta?

Answer 6

Triphenyltetrazolium chloride

Question 7

What is the most common stimulus for hypertrophy of skeletal muscle? What is the most common stimulus for hypertrophy of cardiac muscle?

Answer 7

Skeletal muscle: increased workload; cardiac muscle: increased hemodynamic load

Question 8

What is a key characteristic of hypertrophy?

Answer 8

Increased protein synthesis

Question 9

What is the sequential development of biochemical and morphologic changes in cell injury?

Answer 9

Biochemical alterations, ultrastructural changes, light microscopic changes, and gross morphologic changes

Question 10

What are the two microscopic features consistently seen in reversibly injured cells?

Answer 10

Cellular swelling (hydropic change) and fatty change

Question 11

What is the effect of cellular swelling when it affects many cells?

Answer 11

Pallor, increased turgor, and increased weight of the affected organ; on microscopic examination, small clear vacuoles may be seen within the cytoplasm

Question 12

What do the small clear vacuoles in the cytoplasm of swollen cells represent?

Answer 12

Distended and pinched-off segments of the ER; this pattern of nonlethal injury is sometimes called hydropic change or vacuolar degeneration

Question 13

How does the cytoplasm of injured cells appear?

Answer 13

Red (eosinophilic) when stained with H&E due to the loss of RNA

Question 14

What are all of the morphological changes seen in the cell with injury associated with?

Answer 14

Decreased generation of ATP, loss of membrane integrity, defects in protein synthesis, cytoskeletal damage, and DNA damage

Question 15

What are the two characteristic signs of reversible cell injury?

Answer 15

Osmotic cellular swelling and fatty change

Question 16

What are the ultrastructural changes associated with reversible cell injury?

Answer 16

Plasma membrane alterations, mitochondrial changes, accumulation of myelin figures, dilation of the ER, and nuclear alterations

Question 17

all stresses and noxious influences exert their effects first at what level?

Answer 17

the molecular or biochemical level

Question 18

The morphologic appearance of necrosis is the result of what?

Answer 18

denaturation of intracellular proteins and enzymatic digestion of the lethally injured cell

Question 19

What can be detected as early as 2 hours after myocardial cell necrosis?

Answer 19

as the result of loss of plasma membrane integrity, cardiac specific enzymes and proteins (biomarkers) are rapidly released from necrotic muscle