Pathophysiologybased

Pathophysiologybased describes an approach in medicine that grounds decision-making in the underlying pathophysiology of disease. It emphasizes understanding the mechanisms by which disease processes cause symptoms and organ dysfunction, including molecular pathways, cellular interactions, and tissue abnormalities, to guide diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy rather than relying solely on symptomatic management or traditional guidelines.

The term is used across medical disciplines, including pharmacology, cardiology, neurology, oncology, and primary care. It encompasses both how a condition develops (etiology and pathogenesis) and how it disrupts normal physiology, with the goal of identifying interventions that target root mechanisms rather than just alleviating signs and symptoms.

Rationale for a pathophysiologybased approach includes improving precision of treatment, enabling targeted therapies, and enabling better prediction of treatment responses. It supports the use of biomarkers, imaging, and functional tests that reflect underlying disease processes, and it can guide personalized strategies by accounting for individual variation in mechanistic pathways.

Examples include pathophysiologybased cancer therapy that targets specific signaling pathways or receptors, pathophysiologybased cardiovascular management that focuses on the disturbed hemodynamics and neurohumoral axes, and pathophysiologybased pain management that differentiates between nociceptive, inflammatory, and neuropathic mechanisms.

Limitations arise from incomplete or evolving mechanistic knowledge, potential overreliance on assumed pathways, and the need to integrate mechanistic insight with robust clinical evidence from trials. In practice, a pathophysiologybased approach is most effective when combined with evidence-based medicine, clinical judgment, and patient-specific factors.