S2 Acute Inflammation Flashcards
What is inflammation?
The response of living tissue to injury
What are the key features of acute inflammation?
- immediate
- short duration
- innate (natural)
- stereotyped (in-built mechanism)
- limits damage
What are the two phases in inflammation?
- Vascular phase
2. Cellular phase
What is the vascular phase?
Changes in blood flow, accumulation of exudate
What is the cellular phase?
Delivery of neutrophils
What is inflammation controlled by?
Chemical mediators
What causes inflammation?
- trauma/foreign body
- microorganisms
- hypersensitivity
- other illness, including necrosis
What are clinical signs of acute inflammation?
- rubor - redness
- calor - heat
- tumor - swelling
- dolor - pain
- loss of function
What changes in blood flow occur in the vascular phase?
- Vasoconstriction (seconds)
- Vasodilation (minutes) - causes heat and redness
- Increased permeability - fluid and cells can escape
What is Starling’s Law?
Movement of fluid is controlled by the balance of hydrostatics pressure and oncotic pressure
What is hydrostatic pressure?
The pressure exerted on a vessel wall by fluid (pushes fluid away)
What is oncotic pressure?
The pressure exerted by proteins e.g. albumin (draws fluid towards)
In a normal capillary, is there any net movement in and outer the vessel?
No, fluid movement out due to capillary hydrostatic pressure matches fluid movement in due to capillar oncotic pressure
What does vasodilation mean for hydrostatic/oncotic pressure?
It increases capillary hydrostatic pressure, has no effect on oncotic pressure
Due to more blood flow through the capillary
What does increased vessel permeability mean for hydrostatic and oncotic pressure?
Increased interstitial oncotic pressure
Due to plasma proteins moving into the interstitium
What does fluid movement/accumulation out of the vessel and into the interstitum cause?
Oedema (tumor)
What does movement of fluid out of the vessel mean for the blood viscosity? And on blood flow?
Blood viscosity is increased meaning reduced flow through the vessel (stasis)
What are the two types of interstitial fluid?
- Exudate
2. Transudate
What are the differences between exudate and transudate?
- exudate results from increased vascular permeability, transudate has no change in permeability
- exudate is protein rich fluid, transudate doesn’t
- transudate fluid movement is due to increased capillary hydrostatic pressure and reduced capillary oncotic pressure
- exudate occurs in inflammation, transudate occurs in heart failure, hepatic failure and renal failure
Why does transudate occur in heart, hepatic and renal failure?
Heart - can’t effectively pump blood around the body so blood remains in vasculature increasing the capillary hydrostatic pressure
Hepatic - a damaged liver means reduced plasma proteins (less production) so lower capillary oncotic pressure
Renal - loss of proteins urine, lower capillary oncotic pressure
How does a vessel wall become permeable?
- endothelial cells retract (due to histamine, nitric oxide and leukotrienes)
- direct injury (due to burns, toxins, direct trauma)
- leucocyte dependent injury (due to enzymes/toxic oxygen species being released by activated inflammatory cells)
How is the vascular phase effective as a response to injury?
The interstitial dilutes toxin
The exudate delivers proteins e.g. fibrin (mesh limits the spread of toxin) and immunoglobulins (targeted destruction of pathogens - adaptive immune response)
Fluid drains into the lymph nodes and delivers antigens which stimulate the adaptive immune response
What is a neutrophil?
The primary white blood cell involved in acute inflammation
Is a granulocyte with a multi-/tri-lobed nucleus
How doe neutrophils get out of vessels?
- Marigination
- Rolling
- Adhesion
- Emigration (diapedesis)
How does rolling occur? What adhesion molecule is involved?
Occurs due to weak intermittent bonds between the neutrophil and endothelial cells
Selectins - expressed on the activated endothelial cells, they’re activated by chemical mediators
How does adhesion occur? What adhesion molecule is involved?
The neutrophil binds more strongly to the endothelial cells
Integrins - on the neutrophil surface, able to change from a low affinity state to high affinity state