Chapter 2: Introduction Flashcards
What are the four aspects of a disease process that form the core of pathology?
Etiology, pathogenesis, morphology, and clinical manifestations
Although there are myriad factors that cause disease, all can be grouped into two broad classes. What are these classes?
Genetic and environmental
What does pathogenesis refer to?
The sequence of molecular, biochemical, and cellular events that lead to the development of the disease
What does morphologic changes refer to?
The structural alterations in cells or tissues that are characteristic of a disease and hence diagnostic of an etiologic process
What are 7 causes of cell injury?
Oxygen deprivation, physical agents, chemical agents and drugs, infectious agents, immunological reactions, genetic abnormalities, and nutritional imbalances
What is the stain that colors myocardium magenta?
Triphenyltetrazolium chloride
What is the most common stimulus for hypertrophy of skeletal muscle? What is the most common stimulus for hypertrophy of cardiac muscle?
Skeletal muscle: increased workload; cardiac muscle: increased hemodynamic load
What is a key characteristic of hypertrophy?
Increased protein synthesis
What is the sequential development of biochemical and morphologic changes in cell injury?
Biochemical alterations, ultrastructural changes, light microscopic changes, and gross morphologic changes
What are the two microscopic features consistently seen in reversibly injured cells?
Cellular swelling (hydropic change) and fatty change
What is the effect of cellular swelling when it affects many cells?
Pallor, increased turgor, and increased weight of the affected organ; on microscopic examination, small clear vacuoles may be seen within the cytoplasm
What do the small clear vacuoles in the cytoplasm of swollen cells represent?
Distended and pinched-off segments of the ER; this pattern of nonlethal injury is sometimes called hydropic change or vacuolar degeneration
How does the cytoplasm of injured cells appear?
Red (eosinophilic) when stained with H&E due to the loss of RNA
What are all of the morphological changes seen in the cell with injury associated with?
Decreased generation of ATP, loss of membrane integrity, defects in protein synthesis, cytoskeletal damage, and DNA damage
What are the two characteristic signs of reversible cell injury?
Osmotic cellular swelling and fatty change
What are the ultrastructural changes associated with reversible cell injury?
Plasma membrane alterations, mitochondrial changes, accumulation of myelin figures, dilation of the ER, and nuclear alterations
all stresses and noxious influences exert their effects first at what level?
the molecular or biochemical level
The morphologic appearance of necrosis is the result of what?
denaturation of intracellular proteins and enzymatic digestion of the lethally injured cell
What can be detected as early as 2 hours after myocardial cell necrosis?
as the result of loss of plasma membrane integrity, cardiac specific enzymes and proteins (biomarkers) are rapidly released from necrotic muscle
