The Red Cell and Anemia

Hematopathology is not only the study of disease of the blood and bone marrow, but also of the organs and tissues which employ blood cells as principal effectors of their physiologic functions. Such would include the lymph nodes, spleen, thymus, and the many foci of lymphoid tissue found along the aerodigestive tract. Generally two types of medical subspecialists intensively practice in this area, the hematologist and the hematopathologist. The hematologist usually is a Board-certified internist who has completed additional years of training in hematology, usually as part of a combined fellowship in hematology and oncology. The thrust of this individual’s work is toward the diagnosis and medical management of patients with hematologic disease, especially neoplasms, and medical management of other nonhematologic cancer. The hematopathologist, on the other hand, is usually Board-certified in anatomic and clinical pathology and has taken additional years of training in hematopathology. His or her principal activity is the morphologic diagnosis of conditions of the hematopoietic and lymphocyte-rich tissues and in the performance of laboratory testing that assists such diagnosis.1