Inflammation as a basic biological mode of reaction
Lorenzen, I.
Ugeskrift for Laeger 152(50): 3788-3791
1990
ISSN/ISBN: 0041-5782 PMID: 2264187 Document Number: 363293
The inflammatory reaction is a fundamental biological defence reaction which ensures the survival of the organism. Reaction of the organism to trauma includes local and systemic reactions which are integrated and which are often the basis for the clinical and paraclinical manifestations of disease. The reactions of the organism to trauma are, by and large, nonspecific and independent of the nature of the precipitating factor. This explains the similarity between the clinical and paraclinical manifestations in a series of inflammatory diseases. The basal inflammatory reaction pattern may be identified in apparently very different conditions: healing of wounds, infectious disease, non-infectious inflammatory disease, atherosclerosis, neoplastic disease and growth and regeneration. Identification of a series of humoral inflammation mediators and growth factors and the possibilities for direct monitoring of the inflammatory and reparative processes of connective tissue have increased the possibilities for identification of the etiological/pathogenetic factors and the possibilities for rational therapeutic pharmacological and immunological modulation of disease.