Medicine questions >>>> Inflammation - signs and causes
Inflammation - signs and causes.
Inflammation is a protective response of body tissues to irritation (damage). The main role in the development of inflammation is played by immune reactions, which, to destroy the irritating factor and start the regeneration processes, use mediators (they are called " inflammatory mediators") - substances directed to the focus of irritation or tissue damage, and are responsible for biochemical processes and structural changes tissues in the focus of their damage.
Mediators are responsible for the signs of inflammation:
- Pain,
- Itching,
- Burning,
- Proliferation of tissues.
Inflammation of tissues is always accompanied by limitation of the damaged tissue, destruction of the damaging (irritating) factor and restoration of the tissue structure, or its modification (for example, replacement with connective tissue).
The causes of inflammation correspond to a variety of damaging mechanisms (physical, chemical, mechanical, biological). In this regard, the cause of inflammation can be mechanical injury, various kinds of burns, infectious agents (microorganisms of various origins: bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoal). There are inflammations of allergic origin, which are the body's reaction to foreign genes (antigen – antibody).
The process of inflammation causes a change in the properties of blood elements and their quantitative composition, which makes it possible to judge the presence of a visually invisible process of inflammation by blood analysis. In a blood test, inflammation is indicated by an increase in ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), an increase in the level of leukocytes, an increase in the level of neutrophils, an increase in the level of lymphocytes. Leukocytes, neutrophils and lymphocytes are agents of the immune system that it uses to combat damage to tissue structures.
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