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Once pathologists have finished describing lesions, they must interpret what they have found and develop a morphologic diagnosis. A morphologic diagnosis is a short phrase that sums up the important aspects of the lesion and is a way to communicate these aspects to other medical professionals in a precise way.

The components of a morphologic diagnosis are:

1. Severity  (abbreviated as: s)
2. Time  (abbreviated as: t)
3. Lesion  (abbreviated as: l)
4. Anatomic site  (abbreviated as: a)

These four are the basics, but sometimes other modifiers can be used to refer to Distribution (abbreviated as: d)

For example, if you saw a swollen, dark red spleen that dripped blood when you cut it, the morphologic diagnosis would be:

Severe,	acute,	diffuse,	splenic	congestion.
s	t	d	a	l

Similarly, if you saw a kidney with a small wedge-shaped area in the parenchyma that was firm and white/tan and shrunken below the level of the rest of the normal surface, your morphologic diagnosis would be:

Mild,	chronic,	focal,	renal	infarct
s	t	d	a	l

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