Histopathology and Cytopathology

Question 1

What do histopathologists look at?

Answer 1

Focus on tissues:
Biopsies 
Resection specimens 
Frozen specimens 
Post-mortems

Question 2

What do cytopathologists look at?

Answer 2

Focus on cells:
Smears
Fine needle aspirations

Question 3

What is a biopsy?

Answer 3

Removal of a small sample of tissue

Question 4

What do we use biopsies for?

Answer 4

All sorts of things, essentially aids a diagnosis. Is it cancerous? Is it inflammatory?

Question 5

What is a resection?

Answer 5

Resection is when you remove an organ in its entirety or a large part of it e.g. an entire liver lobe

Question 6

What do we use resections for?

Answer 6

To see how far a cancer has spread e.g. if you’ve remove a tumour you look at the tissue and look at the margins of the organ to see if there are any tumour cells there

Question 7

What do we use frozen sections for?

Answer 7

Frozen sections are used intraoperatively, because you can take them, freeze them without using formalin and study the tissue to get a quick preliminary diagnosis