Acute Inflammation Flashcards
What are the 6 causes of acute inflammation?
- Microorganisms
- Mechanical trauma
- Chemical
- Extreme physical conditions
- Dead tissue
- Hypersenstivity
What are the benefits to acute inflammation?
- Rapid response
- Cardinal signs and loss of function for protection
- Neutrophil recruitment
What is the role of neutrophils in acute inflammation?
- Destruction of pathogens
- Denaturation of antigens for macrophages
What else is a key factor in the acute inflammation process, other than neutrophils?
Plasma proteins
What are the steps involved in microvascular change?
- Change in vessel radius/flow
- Change in vessel permeability
- Movement of neutrophils from the vessel to extracellular space
Describe the change in vessel radius
- Transient vasoconstriction
- Local vasodilation
- Caused by changes in contraction space of vessel smooth muscle
- Triple response
- Causes rubor and calor
What is the triple response?
- Line - white line
- Flare - red inflamed line
- Wheal - nothing
What does rubor mean?
Redness
What does calor mean?
Heat
What 3 things does the change in vessel permeability result in?
- Endothelial leak
- Plasma, fibrinogen and immunoglobulin all leaving the vessels
- Oedema
What are the three processes of movement by neutrophils into the extracellular space?
- Margination
- Pavementing
- Emigration
What is margination?
- Neutrophils move to endothelium under chemotaxis
What is pavementing?
- Neutrophils adhere to endothelia using ICAM-1
What is emigration (take a wild fucking guess)?
- Neutrophils squeeze between endothelia to outer tissue through the action of P selectin
What are the 4 systematic effects of acute inflammation?
- Pyrexia
- Malaise
- Neutrophilia
- Septic shock
What is pyrexia?
High temperature
What is malaise?
Feeling generally unwell
What is neutrophilia?
High number of neutrophil granulocytes in the blood
What is septic shock?
Dangerously low BP following infection
What 3 things does acute inflammation lead to in healing?
- Granulation tissue formation
- Healing and repair
- Scar formation
What is the process of granulation tissue formation?
- Inflammatory mass
- Capillaries grow into the mass (angiogenesis)
- Allows access for plasma proteins, macrophages and fibroblasts
- Collagen laid down
What functionality does granulation tissue have compared to its mother tissue?
Limited to none
What are examples of when acute inflammation spreads to the bloodstream (sepsis)?
- Bacteraemia - bacteria move to the blood
- Septicaemia - bacteria reproduce in the blood
- Toxaemia - bacteria produce their exotoxin in the blood
