
Lecture 8
Inflammation (Pg 114)
DEFINITION AND CAUSES. Inflammation is defined as the local response of living mammalian tissues to injury due to any agent. It is body defense reaction in order to eliminate or limit the spread of injurious agent.
The agents causing inflammation may be as under:
1. Physical agents like heat, cold, radiation, mechanical trauma.
2. Chemical agents like organic and inorganic poisons.
3. Infective agents like bacteria, viruses, parasites.
4. Immunological agents like cell-mediated and antigen-antibody reactions.
Although the inflammation involves 2 basic processes with some overlapping, viz. early inflammatory response and later followed by healing, but for the purpose of description, the two are considered separately.
SIGNS OF INFLAMMATION. The Roman writer Celsus in 1st century A.D. named the famous 4 cardinal signs of inflammations as:
• rubor (redness);
• tumor (swelling);
• color (heat); and
• dolor(pain).
To these, fifth sign functio laesa (loss of function) was later added by Virchow. The word inflammation means burning. This nomenclature has its origin in old times but now we know that burning is only one of the signs of inflammation.
TYPES OF INFLAMMATION. Depending upon the defense capacity of the host and duration of response, inflammation can be classified as acute and chronic.
I. Acute inflammation is of short duration and represents the early body reaction and is usually followed by repair.
II. Chronic inflammation is of longer duration and occurs either after the causative agent of acute inflammation persists for a long time, or the stimulus is such that it induces chronic inflammation from the beginning.
ACUTE INFLAMMATION
The changes in acute inflammation can be conveniently described under the following 2 headings:
I. Vascular events; and
II. Cellular events.
I. Vascular Events
Alteration in the microvasculature (arterioles, capillaries and veins) is the earliest response to tissue injury. These alterations include: hemodynamic changes and changes in vascular permeability.
HAEMODYNAMIC CHANGES
The earliest features of inflammatory response result from changes in the vascular flow and caliber of small blood vessels in the injured tissue. The sequence of these changes is as under:
1. Irrespective of the type of injury, immediate vascular response is of transient vasoconstriction of arterioles. With mild form of injury, the blood flow may be re-established in 3-5 seconds while with more severe injury the vasoconstriction may last for about 5 minutes.
2. Next follows persistent progressive vasodilatation which involves mainly the arterioles, but to a less extent, affects other components of the microcirculation like venules and capillaries. This change is obvious within half an hour of injury. Vasodilatation results in increased blood volume in micro vascular bed of the area, which in turn, may elevate the local hydrostatic pressure resulting in transudation of fluid into the extra cellular space.
3. Slowing or stasis of microcirculation occurs next. Slowing is attributed to increased permeability of microvasculature due to increased hydrostatic pressure
4. Stasis or slowing is followed by leucocytic margination or peripheral orientation of leucocytes (mainly neutrophils) along the vascular endothelium. The leucocytes stick to the vascular endothelium briefly, and then move and migrate through the gaps between the endothelial cells into the extra vascular space. This process is known as emigration (discussed in detail later).