cytopathology

[sahy-toh-puh-thol-uh-jee]

noun

Pathology.

1. the science dealing with the study of the diseases of cells.

Other Word Forms

• cytopathologic adjective
• cytopathological adjective
• cytopathologically adverb
• cytopathologist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of cytopathology¹

First recorded in 1935–40; cyto- + pathology

Example Sentences

His bookshelves hold copies of “Principles and Practice of Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology,” alongside Tupperware containers and glass jars containing embalmed human organs.

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Yolanda Oertel, 82, a physician at Washington Hospital Center and a professor at George Washington University’s medical school who specialized in cytopathology, died Sept. 16 at a hospice center in Falls Church, Va. The cause was a stroke, said a friend, Wen Lee.

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She was on the GWU faculty from 1968 to 2002 and then spent the next 13 years as a physician specializing in cytopathology — cellular disease — at Washington Hospital Center.

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Cytopathology refers to the diagnosis of disease at the cellular level.

Read more on Scientific American

The first cytopathology tool widely used in the United States was the Pap smear test, which was adopted in the 1950s to screen patients for cervical cancer.

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