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Pathology is a branch of medical science primarily concerning the cause, origin, and nature of disease. It involves the examination of tissues, organs, bodily fluids, and autopsies in order to study and diagnose disease.

Currently, pathology can be divided into seven main areas, depending on the types of methods used or the types of diseases examined. These different disciplines are described below.

• General pathology General pathology describes a complex and broad field that involves the study of the mechanisms behind cell and tissue injury and understanding how the body responds to and repairs injury. Examples of areas that may be studied include necrosis, neoplasia, wound healing, inflammation and how cells adapt to injury. Thorough understanding in these areas is applied in the diagnosis of disease. General pathology is also the term used to describe anatomical and clinical pathology.
• Anatomical pathology This field is concerned with the study and diagnosis of illness through microscopic analysis of samples from bodily fluids, tissues organs and sometimes the entire body or autopsy. Factors that may be examined include the cell appearance, anatomical makeup and chemical signatures within cells.
• Clinical pathology clinical pathology concerns the analysis of blood, urine and tissue samples to examine and diagnose disease. Examples of the information clinical pathology laboratories may provide include blood count, blood clotting and electrolyte results. A clinical pathologist is usually trained in microbiology, hematology or blood banking, but not at the same expert level as someone who specializes in one of these fields.
• Chemical Pathology or Biochemistry Biochemists or chemical pathologists examine all aspects of disease, identifying changes in various different substances found in the blood and bodily fluids such as proteins, hormones and electrolytes since these changes can indicate and provide clues about disease or disease risk.
• Hematology This field is concerned with various different disease aspects that affect the blood, including bleeding disorders, clotting problems, and anemia, for example. Another area of hematology is transfusion medicine, which involves performing blood typing, cross-matching for compatibility and managing large amounts of blood products. An example of a test a hematologist may perform is a blood clotting test to check whether a patient’s dose of warfarin needs increasing or decreasing.
• Immunology Immunologists perform immune function tests to establish whether or not a patient is suffering from an allergy and if so, what they are allergic to. Many diseases also arise as a result of the immune system having an abnormal reaction to healthy cells or tissues and launching an immune attack against them. This is referred to as a autoimmune disease. There is a range of immunological tests that can detect markers of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and lupus.
• Microbiology Microbiology is concerned with diseases caused by pathogenic agents such as bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. Samples of blood, bodily fluid and tissue are tested to establish whether infection exists, and the field of medical microbiology is also engaged with identifying new species of microorganisms.