Arab Board Anatomic Pathology Part 1 flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Coagulative necrosis

Necrosis in which tissue architecture is preserved for days; typical of ischemic injury in heart, kidney, and spleen, but not brain.

Apoptosis

Programmed cell death mediated by caspases, with cell shrinkage, chromatin condensation, and membrane-bound apoptotic bodies; it usually incites little or no inflammation.

Virchow triad

Three factors predisposing to thrombosis: endothelial injury, abnormal blood flow such as stasis or turbulence, and hypercoagulability of blood.

Granuloma

Compact collection of epithelioid macrophages, often with multinucleated giant cells and a rim of lymphocytes, formed in chronic inflammation such as tuberculosis.

Myocardial infarct timeline

After coronary occlusion, light microscopy is normal for 4 to 12 hours, then shows coagulative necrosis, neutrophils at 1 to 3 days, macrophages at 3 to 7 days, and scar after weeks.

Nephrotic syndrome

Clinical complex of heavy proteinuria, hypoalbuminemia, edema, and hyperlipidemia; causes include minimal change disease, membranous nephropathy, and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis.

Papillary thyroid carcinoma

Thyroid malignancy with papillary structures, optically clear Orphan Annie nuclei, nuclear grooves, and psammoma bodies; it often spreads to cervical lymph nodes.

Adenoma-carcinoma sequence

Colorectal carcinogenesis in which APC mutation initiates adenoma, followed by KRAS activation and TP53 loss, producing invasive carcinoma over years.

Formalin fixation

Ten percent neutral buffered formalin cross-links proteins; use about ten times tissue volume and allow roughly one millimeter penetration per hour to preserve morphology.

Hematoxylin and eosin

Routine stain in which basic hematoxylin colors nuclei blue-purple, while acidic eosin colors cytoplasm, collagen, and red blood cells pink.

Congo red stain

Stain that binds amyloid and produces apple-green birefringence under polarized light; it is used to confirm amyloid deposition in tissues.

Frozen section

Rapid intraoperative technique that freezes tissue, cuts sections in a cryostat, and stains them, mainly to assess margins, diagnosis, or adequacy while the patient is in surgery.

Bethesda Pap categories

Cervical cytology reporting system: NILM, ASC-US, LSIL, ASC-H, HSIL, AGC, and carcinoma; management depends on category, HPV status, and patient age.

Pap stain colors

In cervical cytology, superficial squamous cells stain pink with eosin, intermediate cells stain blue-green with cyanophilic dye, and parabasal cells also appear blue-green.

Thyroid Bethesda categories

FNA reporting system with six categories from nondiagnostic through benign, atypia, follicular neoplasm, suspicious, and malignant; each carries an implied malignancy risk.

Malignant mesothelioma fluid

Pleural fluid may show cohesive mesothelial cells with windows and calretinin, WT1, and cytokeratin positivity, whereas adenocarcinoma expresses MOC-31, Ber-EP4, and CEA.

HER2 scoring

Breast cancer IHC score 3+ is positive; 2+ is equivocal and requires in-situ hybridization; 0 or 1+ is negative. ISH ratio of 2.0 or greater is amplified.

Mismatch repair loss

Loss of MLH1, PMS2, MSH2, or MSH6 on immunohistochemistry suggests deficient mismatch repair; MLH1 loss warrants BRAF or MLH1 promoter methylation testing for Lynch syndrome.

Cytokeratin immunostain

Cytokeratins are intermediate filaments in epithelial cells; broad-spectrum cytokeratin positivity supports carcinoma and helps distinguish it from sarcoma, lymphoma, or melanoma.

FISH in pathology

Fluorescence in-situ hybridization detects specific DNA sequences; it is used for HER2 amplification, translocations such as EWSR1, and deletion studies on interphase nuclei.

Iron deficiency anemia

Microcytic anemia with low serum ferritin, low serum iron, high total iron-binding capacity, and low transferrin saturation; ferritin is the most specific indicator.

CML hallmark

Chronic myeloid leukemia is defined by t(9;22) Philadelphia chromosome producing BCR-ABL1; the peripheral blood shows leukocytosis with left shift and basophilia.

Reed-Sternberg cells

Large binucleate cells with prominent nucleoli seen in Hodgkin lymphoma; they usually express CD15 and CD30 and are surrounded by reactive inflammatory cells.

Acute hemolytic reaction

Most severe transfusion reaction, caused by ABO incompatibility; fever, chills, flank pain, hemoglobinuria, and hypotension occur, with disseminated intravascular coagulation risk.

Livor mortis

Postmortem gravitational pooling of blood producing purplish skin discoloration; it begins within hours, fixes after about 8 to 12 hours, and helps estimate time since death.

Cause versus manner

Cause is the disease or injury producing death; mechanism is the physiologic derangement; manner is the classification as natural, accident, suicide, homicide, or undetermined.

Gunshot entrance wound

Typically round with a marginal abrasion, soot, and tattooing at close range; it may show a grease ring, while exit wounds are often larger and irregular without soot.

Postmortem redistribution

After death, drugs may diffuse from organs into blood, raising central blood concentrations; interpret toxicology using site, time, and peripheral blood when possible.

Sensitivity formula

Sensitivity equals true positives divided by true positives plus false negatives; it is the probability that a diseased person tests positive.

Positive predictive value

PPV equals true positives divided by all positives; unlike sensitivity, it depends strongly on disease prevalence in the tested population.

Accuracy versus precision

Accuracy is closeness to the true value; precision is reproducibility among repeated measurements. A method can be precise but biased or accurate on average with random scatter.

Westgard rules

Statistical quality-control rules using control observations; for example, 1-3s flags one result beyond three standard deviations, and 2-2s flags two consecutive results beyond two standard deviations.