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THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF CUTANEOUS PATHOLOGY!
Your physician has chosen our laboratory to interpret yor skin biopsy. We want to explain what we do and what you can expect from us.
In the practice of medicine, accurate diagnosis is critical to proper treatment. There is no better example of this important principle than in the practice of cutaneous pathology.
Cutaneous pathology, also known as dermatopathology, is the microscopic examination of skin biopsies in order to determine a specific diagnosis or a list of possible diagnoses.
The discipline of cutaneous pathology evolved from the need by the clinician, or dermatologist, to correlate the "naked eye" presentation of the patient's skin lesions to their microscopic patterns. Over the course of several decades an entire field of study, concentrating primarily on the histologic (tissue) aspects of skin diseases, has emerged. Today, this is a formal subspecialty that some pathologists, dermatologists, or both persue to achieve special certification from the American Boards of Pathology and Dermatology. The certification requires at least one year of fellowship training beyond residency in pathology or dermatology, in addition to the successful completion of a special examination in dermatopathology.
As cutaneous research continues, new observations and concepts are being made, requiring even more attention from the cutaneous pathologists in order to provide the most accurate diagnosis of a patient's biopsy.
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