As nouns the difference between pathology and cytology
is that pathology is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences while cytology is the study of cells.
cytology
Noun
(-)
(biology) The study of cells.
Cytopathology.
Derived terms
* cytologic
* cytological
* cytologist
pathology
English
Noun
(
pathologies)
(medicine) The branch of medicine concerned with the study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences.
The medical specialty that provides microscopy and other laboratory services (e.g., cytology, histology) to clinicians.
- The surgeon sent a specimen of the cyst to the pathology department for staining and analysis to determine its histologic subtype.
Pathosis: any deviation from a healthy or normal structure or function; abnormality; illness or malformation.
Derived terms
* pathologist
* anatomical pathology
* chemical pathology
* cytopathology
* experimental pathology
* forensic pathology
* histopathology
* plant pathology
* psychopathology
Related terms
* pathologic
* pathological
* pathobiology
* pathophysiology
Usage notes
* Some house style guides for medical publications avoid the "illness" sense of pathology'' (disease, state of ill health) and replace it with ''pathosis''. The rationale is that the ''-ology'' form should be reserved for the "study of disease" sense and for the medical specialty that provides microscopy and other laboratory services (e.g., cytology, histology) to clinicians. This rationale drives similar usage preferences about ''etiology'' ("cause" sense versus "study of causes" sense), ''methodology'' ("methods" sense versus "study of methods" sense), and other ''-ology'' words. Not all such , because most physicians don't do so in their own speech (and the context makes clear the sense intended). Another limitation is that ''pathology'' meaning "illness" has an adjectival form (''pathologic''), but the corresponding adjectival form of ''pathosis'' (''pathotic'') is idiomatically missing from English (defective declension), so ''pathologic'' is obligate for both senses ("diseased" and "related to the study of disease"); this likely helps keep the "illness" sense of ''pathology'' in natural use (as the readily retrieved noun counterpart to ''pathologic in the "diseased" sense).
