Pathology is a vital part of medicine and has many diverse aspects to it. It allows strategies to screen for diseases and to detect diseases such as certain cancers very early, which increases the chances of treating it. The practice of pathology is currently undergoing significant change, in large part due to advances in the analysis of DNA, RNA, and proteins in tissues. Today, the extent to which immunopathological and molecular pathologic techniques are used varies greatly, but it is conceivable that in the next decade many of today's most technically advanced methods of molecular analysis will become standard practice.