Important Topics of Pathology for MBBS Prof Exams

The subject of pathology is quite vast and seems stressful for MBBS students. But with the proper preparation plan for pathology tests, you can get your concepts clear and score well in exams.

This article broadly covers the important topics that usually give way to tricky pathology examination questions.

But before we delve into the topics that are important for a Pathology exam, let's understand the subject first. What is pathology? It is a significant subject in medicine entirely dedicated to finding the cause of a disease, also known as aetiology, the way various events lead to disease, i.e., pathogenesis, and the histopathological examination of the condition. Pathology is all about the diagnosis of a disease. Students learning pathology gets to answer all the questions such as, How did it all start? Why is it at a particular stage? Which pathology tests are to be performed? And how do pathologists do this?

Well, they work side by side with physicians, surgeons, and radiologists. They use modern technologies, including microscopic, immunologic, and molecular modalities, to determine if any abnormalities can or have led to disease. Needless to say, pathologists play a very important role in the diagnosis and treatment of patients.

Now, let's move on to the essential topics that are frequently asked in exams.

Cell Injury

When a person gets an injury or a bruise, cells in the body go through several modifications, and the body usually feels pain or inflammation. It is this pain that is usually the body's first response to an injury. Students must study all about the various kinds of cell injuries, including free radical injury, pigmentation, and irreversible cell injury. While studying, students should also go through questions related to apoptosis, hyperplasia, metaplasia, necrosis, and dystrophic and metastatic calcifications. Other topics include atrophy, where the cell size is reduced owing to physiological or pathological conditions, or the opposite, hypertrophy, where cells get enlarged, and metaplasia, where cells convert themselves into a different type of cell.

To prepare questions related to cell injury, students can go through study material on the causes of cell injury. For example, the most widespread cause of cell injury is a lack of oxygen. One must also study disorders and nutritional deficits. It is also vital to understand the scenarios where cells can die due to an injury.

Neoplasia

The term neoplasia comes from neoplasm, which means a tumour mass. Another important topic forpathology exams, Neoplasia, is all about the study of the uncontrolled growth of cells. Examples include tumours and mass lesions. These growths can be benign as well as malignant. Benign tumours are those that do not metastasise to affect the surrounding cells. In other words, benign tumours are not life-threatening. Malignant neoplasms, on the other hand, metastasise to affect the surrounding cells, causing a disease. Students should familiarise themselves with these two kinds of tumours, the hallmarks of a cancer diagnosis.

Hematopathology

This branch of pathology is all about the diseases of the cells in your blood. These cells are the white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. Anyone who has ever gotten a complete body check-up would be aware of these three cells. However, students must go deep to prepare for the pathology exam. They need to understand the disorders that Hematopathology is related to, including anaemia, leukaemia, and lymphoma. Questions related to blood cell morphology and bone marrow examination are important under this topic.

Gastrointestinal Pathology

As the word gastrointestinal suggests, this topic is about diagnosing non-neoplastic and neoplastic conditions of digestive organs such as the oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. Students must go through questions related to the gastrointestinal tract, gall bladder, and liver tumours. Modules of gastrointestinal lymphomas, peptic ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease, and cirrhosis are also important.

Respiratory Pathology

The diagnosis of respiratory diseases—this pathology—can be talked about in the same breath as asthma, bronchitis, flu, sinusitis, and influenza. To prepare for this topic, students must understand the effects of long-term exposure to substances such as cigarettes and air pollution. They should also study how viruses pass through the air passage from one person to another, replicating themselves while spreading infections and respiratory diseases. Post-pandemic, students cannot afford to ignore research on the causes of COVID-19, how it spreads, the mechanism of its vaccination, etc.

Male Genital Tract

This subject includes prostrate pathology, covering topics such as chronic prostatitis, nodular prostatic hyperplasia, and adenocarcinoma. Tumours of the urinary system, prostate, and testis are also important topics. Don't skip chapters on the pathogenesis of BPH, testicular tumours, seminoma, and differentiating features of seminomatous tumours from non-seminomatous tumours.

Female Genital Tract

Relevant topics include common infections of the female genital tract, endometrial hyperplasia and carcinoma, tumours in the ovaries, sex cord-stromal tumours, and the normal placental anatomy. Read up on cervical cancer, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, HPV, leiomyoma, and adenomyosis as well.

Besides going through various study materials covering topics like cancer pathology, infectious disease pathology, respiratory pathology, gastrointestinal pathology, renal pathology, cardiovascular pathology, infectious disease pathology, hematopathology, and endocrine pathology, students must also look at the video content, which is available online.

Sometimes, written content can be overwhelming, and mugging up answers is not fun. That is when online pathology video lectures and online pathology MBBS lectures and notes come to the rescue. Some popular channels to look out for include Pathweb Teacher, Pathology for UnderGrads by DigiNerve, PathCast, and Osmosis from Elsevier. Students find pathology video lectures very helpful because they are engaging. In some videos, doctors cite examples from their own experiences, which is as real as it gets. If you choose to learn from a good pathology course online, you also get access to concise notes, clinical case discussions and practice questions to escalate your learning.

And last but not least, don’t fret or panic. Focus on one topic at a time. Go through several articles.

Remember, Revision and consistency are a must.

All the best!