Expert Cancer Tissue Diagnosis Lab Services for Accurate Results in South Texas

How Pathology Benefits You

Pathology plays a crucial role in diagnosing and determining the appropriate treatment for a variety of health conditions. Often, when your doctor identifies a potential concern in your body, they may recommend obtaining a small sample of tissue, known as a biopsy, from the affected area.

Your sample is sent to the pathology laboratory, where it is carefully processed, examined, and analyzed by a pathologist—a highly trained medical professional specializing in diagnosing diseases at the cellular and molecular level. The pathologist’s examination provides essential insights that help your doctor determine whether the tissue is indicative of cancer, an infection, or another type of disease. This information is critical in enabling your doctor to formulate the most appropriate treatment plan tailored to your specific condition.

During certain surgical procedures, a surgeon may need immediate insight into the nature of a suspicious tissue sample to guide the course of surgery. In these cases, a frozen section may be performed. A small portion of the tissue is removed during the surgery, frozen, and quickly processed in the pathology lab to create thin slices that can be placed on a microscope slide. The results of the frozen section help the surgeon make immediate decisions regarding the course of surgery, ensuring that the most appropriate and effective treatment is delivered right away.

Pathology’s role in these procedures is essential, as it directly informs the diagnosis, treatment plan, and overall care management for patients. Whether through routine biopsies, advanced imaging-guided procedures, or intraoperative consultations, pathology provides the vital information necessary for your doctor to offer the most effective and personalized care.

For reliable information on pathology diagnoses, we recommend the following websites:

  1. American Cancer Society (ACS) – cancer.org
  2. National Cancer Institute (NCI) – cancer.gov
  3. Lab Tests Online – labtestsonline.org
  4. Pathology Education Instructional Resource (PEIR) – peirpathology.org
  5. Mayo Clinic – mayoclinic.org

American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) – www.ascp.org