Definition, Purpose and Mechanism of Inflammation

Inflammation is a complex reaction that begins to occur in the blood vessels in response to injury or wound, followed by accumulation of fluid and leukocytes in extravascular tissues. Inflammatory response takes place together with repair process.

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The purpose of inflammation is ruining, dissolving, or limiting the cause of injuries, and this process can in turn be transformed into a series of processes in order to repair the damaged tissue and healing. Repair is begun in the early phase of inflammation and finished when the injury effects are successfully neutralized. During the repair process, the injured tissue, parenchymal cell regeneration and filling the damaged areas by fibroblastic tissue occur.

Inflammation is a protective process to clean or remove the cause of injury (such as toxins or microbes) and the damage (such as cells or necrotic tissue). Without inflammation, infection can occur without control, the wound would not heal, and injured organ will remain sick. However, inflammation and repair processes are still potentially harmful, such as hypersensitivity reaction which can cause life-threatening, such as insect bites, drugs or toxins effects. 

Inflammatory reaction also underlies the development of many chronic diseases, such as atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and pulmonary fibrosis. By this basic, it is developed a variety of anti-inflammatory which aims to improve the positive effects of inflammation and control the adverse effects.

The inflammatory response in vascularized connective tissue will involve plasma component, circulating blood cells (such as neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophil, lymphocytes, basophils, and platelets), blood vessels, and cellular components (such as mast cells, fibroblasts, macrophages, lymphocytes) and extracellular (such as collagen, elastin, fibronectin, laminin, etc.) connective tissue. The component parts form strong cellular communication tissues that end by increasing inflammatory response.

Vascular and cellular responses in acute and chronic inflammation are mediated by chemical mediators derived from plasma or cells that induced by inflammatory stimulus.