Necrosis

Pathology is living up to its reputation as a seriously intense course. We have learned all about neoplasms (cancer), infectious diseases (woohoo), cell injury, cell death, cell repair, inflammation, pigmentation, amyloidosis, and hemodynamic disorders such as disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC - very nasty), thrombus formation, strokes and shock.

Now, strokes are known in the medical community as "vascular accidents." Ooops! Sorry about strangling that artery and causing your brain cells to suffocate. I swear, it was an accident!!!" When a stroke occurs in the brain, the cells that were starved of oxygen die (or undergo necrosis) within minutes. Then, in the next day or so, an immune response comes in to clean house, so to speak. The response is rather vigorous and the dead tissue is turned into a gelatinous goo. The brain prefers this type of "liquefactive necrosis" (yes, there are at least 5 different types of necrosis). It sounds gross and it looks worse.

The resulting liquefied tissue oozes out of the infarcted area and when its all cleaned up in a month or two, there is a big hole in the brain where the vascular accident took place, called a cavitation. Depending on the location of the hole in the brain, there can be significant cognitive and physical deficits that result and usually, long-term therapy is needed to recover some of the lost function.

The longer I am in medical school, the more I really can understand, and lately, relate, to the phrase: Getting Old Sucks.

Keep healthy everyone. This stuff is no joke.