Welcome to Pathology Student!
My name is Kristine Krafts, MD, and I love teaching pathology.
If you’re looking for straightforward answers to your pathology questions,
you’ve come to the right place!
A quick summary of primary immunodeficiencies
When people talk about immunodeficiency states, they're usually talking about secondary immunodeficiencies, like AIDS. The primary immune deficiencies really don't get much press. Which is unfortunate, because although they are much less common than secondary immune...
Lupus: a short summary
Systemic lupus erythematosus is one of a few diseases that have earned the name "the great imitator." It is a chronic, systemic illness with many, many possible symptoms in many different organ systems, and widely varying disease courses in different patients. We'll...
What’s the Kleihauer-Betke test used for?
If you read this post about hemolytic disease of the newborn, you already know the answer: it's used for determining the amount of fetal blood that has backed up into the mom's circulation. It's usually done for the purpose of determining Rhogam dose. You need to make...
Hemolytic disease of the newborn
Hemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN) is a disease in which there is hemolysis in a newborn or fetus caused by blood-group incompatibility between mother and child. There are a bunch of related terms: Immune hydrops (Hydrops means accumulation of edema fluid in the...
How to remember which MHC receptor is which
The MHC (major histocompatibility) complex is a collection of genes on chromosome 6. It's organized into three regions: the class I region, the class II region, and the class III region. Class I genes encode glycoproteins expressed on the surface of nearly every...
Real examples of hypersensitivity reactions
Sometimes we (okay, I) get so caught up in describing pathologic mechanisms that real-life examples get the short end of the stick. Let's look at some real diseases in which the underlying problem is a hypersensitivity reaction. Type I (allergic) hypersensitivity The...
Benign vs. malignant hypertension
Q. I'm a bit confused on terminology. Is secondary hypertension the same as malignant? And is systemic hypertension also the same as malignant? A. "Systemic hypertension" is just general, all-over-the-body hypertension. It's what people usually mean when they say...
Hypersensitivity reactions
Here's a summary of those four pesky hypersensitivity reactions you will definitely be asked questions on at some point. Sometimes, the best way to remember things is to boil them down to as few words as possible. For the hypersensitivity reactions, here's what that...
How to heal a cat scratch
Here's a general pathology concept that is important not only for boards but for real life: skin wound healing. Whether the wound is a small kitty scratch or a huge burn, we have ways of repairing the damage and restoring function to the skin. There are two types of...