Inflammation

Abstract Inflammationis the body’s response to cellular injury. It serves to dilute and remove injurious agents and trigger healing of the damaged tissue. Although inflammation is intended to be a protective response, it may also be harmful when inappropriately activated. Inflammation is elicited by any form of cellular damage including infection, physical injury, chemical injury, and ischaemia. Be careful not to equate inflammation with infection. Whilst infection is often accompanied by inflammation, there are many diseases characterized by inflammation which are not caused by infection, such as autoimmune diseases, and even some infectious diseases where inflammation is absent, e.g. variant Creutzfeldt–Jacob disease.