etiopathology

Etiopathology is the study of disease causes and the mechanisms by which those causes lead to disease. The term combines etiologic factors (the causes) with pathogenesis (the development and progression of disease), and it is used to describe an integrated view of why a condition arises and how it unfolds at cellular, tissue, and organ levels.

The scope of etiopathology includes a wide range of etiologies such as genetic predisposition, infectious agents, environmental exposures, nutritional factors, immune dysregulation, and iatrogenic influences. Pathogenesis covers the sequence of events from the initial insult to clinical manifestations, including cellular injury, inflammatory and immune responses, tissue remodeling, and functional impairment. Many diseases are multifactorial, resulting from interactions among genetic susceptibility, environmental triggers, and host responses.

In practice, etiopathology overlaps with pathology and pathophysiology. The term is variably used across disciplines; some authors prefer etiopathogenesis to emphasize the processes that drive disease development, while others treat etiology and pathogenesis as distinct but related components. It remains a framework rather than a fixed discipline in modern medicine, with emphasis often shifting toward molecular and systems-level mechanisms.

Examples illustrate the concept: atherosclerosis involves etiologies such as lipid abnormalities and hypertension, with pathogenesis including endothelial dysfunction, inflammatory processes, and plaque formation; infectious diseases link a causative agent to a cascade of replication and host responses; cancer involves carcinogenic exposures and genetic mutations that drive clonal evolution and tumor progression.