awk - find exact string in column

Something like this, maybe:

awk '{
    split($0,a,/,/)                          # split NEEDED field on commas
    for(i in a)                              # check each part
        if(a[i]~/^(likely_)?pathogenic$/) {  # if matches this regex
            print                            # output
            break                            # no need for more matches
        }
}' file

Some output:

benign,likely_pathogenic
benign,likely_pathogenic
risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
...

Obviously you need to add FS etc. as in your sample code you were processing NF==14.

Edit:

I guess this would work too for the posted sample data:

$ awk '/(^|,)(likely_)?pathogenic(,|$)/' file

or for your assumed data:

$ awk '$14~/(^|,)(likely_)?pathogenic(,|$)/' file

I would exploit GNU AWK's word boundary for this task as follows, let file.txt content be

benign,likely_pathogenic
benign,likely_pathogenic
benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
pathogenic,not_provided,benign,likely_pathogenic,likely_benign,risk_factor
likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
benign,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
benign,likely_pathogenic
uncertain_significance,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
benign,likely_pathogenic
conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
pathogenic,likely_pathogenic
uncertain_significance,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity,likely_benign
benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
pathogenic

then

/pathogenic\y/{print}

gives output

benign,likely_pathogenic
benign,likely_pathogenic
risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
pathogenic,not_provided,benign,likely_pathogenic,likely_benign,risk_factor
benign,likely_pathogenic
benign,likely_pathogenic
conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
pathogenic,likely_pathogenic
pathogenic

Explanation: word boundary (\y) is zero-length assertion, it can be placed before, after or before and after, first gives word starting with, second word ending with, third whole words. So pathogen\y mean words ending with pathogen. GNU AWK define word as sequence of one or more letters, digits or underscores. Note: output is slighty different from desired shown as it does 4th risk_factor line, but it is compliant with description as that line holds ,pathogenic,

(tested in gawk 4.2.1)

the best case (it's not complete) i could quickly get to without using word boundary regex :

echo "${input….}" | 
 
mawk '$!(NF=NF)~ /pathogenic/' \
         FS='[^,]*pathogenic[[:alpha:]][^,]*' OFS=

 1  benign,likely_pathogenic
 2  benign,likely_pathogenic
 3  risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
 4  risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
 5  risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,
 6  pathogenic,not_provided,benign,likely_pathogenic,likely_benign,risk_factor
 7  benign,likely_pathogenic
 8  benign,likely_pathogenic
 9  ,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,
10  ,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,
11  risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,
12  pathogenic,likely_pathogenic
13  pathogenic

it might be deleteing too much stuff around rows 9-10

$ grep -E '(likely_)?pathogenic\b' file
$ sed -En '/(likely_)?pathogenic\b/p' file
$ awk '/(likely_)?pathogenic\y/' file

benign,likely_pathogenic
benign,likely_pathogenic
risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
risk_factor,uncertain_significance,likely_pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,benign
risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
pathogenic,not_provided,benign,likely_pathogenic,likely_benign,risk_factor
benign,likely_pathogenic
benign,likely_pathogenic
conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity,_other,benign,pathogenic,likely_benign,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
risk_factor,benign,likely_benign,drug_response,not_provided,uncertain_significance,pathogenic,uncertain_significance,_other,conflicting_interpretations_of_pathogenicity
pathogenic,likely_pathogenic
pathogenic