MORE COMPLEX INFLAMMATORY RESPONSES

 INFLAMMATORY

While (Pneumonia) streptococcal pneumonia exemplifies and acute inflammatory response in which the recruited cells are virtually restricted to neutrophil granulocytes and cells of the monocyte/macrophage lineage, in other situation, e.g. some viral infections, large numbers of lymphocytes are recruited. This more persistent tissue picture results from a combination of the inflammatory and classical immune responses. The further recruitment of eosinophils in a chronic inflammatory response is a feature of allergic inflammation, e.g. in filariasis and schistosomiasis.
However, these patterns of cellular responses can also be ‘turned against us’ in various diseases if they occur inappropriately or in a uncontrolled fashion. For example, an excessive or inappropriate acute inflammatory response is responsible for many acute tissue injury syndromes, acute goat and acute glomerulonephritis. A chronic inflammatory response and chronic tissue destruction or an excessive fibrogenic response are key features of reheumatoid arthritis, chronic pyelonephritis, fibrosing alveolitis and chronic bronchitis and emphysema. An allergic inflammatory response characterizes asthma and eczema. The vast redundancy of mechanisms displayed in various aspects of the inflammatory response may be advantageous in antibacterial host defense but it poses problems for the development of specific therapy in inflammatory diseases.