Inflammation is a vital part of the body’s immune response. The function of inflammation is to destroy and remove pathogens. If destruction is not possible, inflammation limits effects by confining the pathogen and its products. It is also important for repairing and replacing tissue damaged by the pathogen and its products. Inflammation can potentially be a harmful process. Components of inflammation that are capable of destroying microbes can also injure bystander normal tissue. There are two types of inflammation, acute and chronic.1
Acute vs. Chronic Inflammation
Learn More about Inflammation
Inflammatory responses are essential for the maintenance of normal tissue homeostasis. The molecular mechanism of inflammation is quite a complicated process which is initiated by the recognition of specific molecular patterns associated with either infection or tissue injury.2
The importance of inflammation is that it can sometimes be inappropriately triggered or poorly controlled, and is thus the cause of tissue injury in many disorders.3 Many diseases are associated with inflammation, such as sepsis, neoplastic disorders, autoimmune diseases, AIDS, alcoholic liver disease, and infections, or transplant rejection.
Causes of Inflammation
- Infections (viral, bacterial, parasitic)
- Trauma (blunt, penetrating)
- Tissue necrosis
- Foreign bodies
- Immune reactions (hypersensitivity)
Interleukin-6 (IL-6)
Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is an early indicator of inflammatory response to illness or injury. IL-6 rises within hours of substantial injury or infection and can be monitored to reveal if a patient is suffering an acute response to surgery, trauma, or infection and if the response is waning slowly or rapidly, which can help to predict the patient’s risks and prognosis.4-6
Atellica IM IL-6† Assay Benefits
- Assists physicians in the evaluation of a variety of acute and chronic diseases associated with inflammation such as sepsis, neoplastic disorders, autoimmune diseases, AIDS, alcoholic liver disease, and infections or transplant rejection.7-12
- Predict infection at the onset of a new fever before microbiological culture results are available.13
- Gain workflow efficiency in your sepsis and inflammation testing with a rapid turnaround time.
Lipopolysaccharide- binding Protein
Lipopolysaccharide-binding protein (LBP) aids in the diagnosis and prognosis of diseases induced by exposure to endotoxin, such as sepsis and infectious complications of surgery and trauma. LBP has been shown to be elevated in patients with gram negative, gram positive, and fungal infections.14
Atellica IM LBP† Assay Benefits
- Achieve detection of LBP levels above the normal reference level that have been reported in patients with severe local infection, a systemic bacterial or fungal infection, or septicemia.14
- Predict severity of lung injury and mortality in patients with severe sepsis.15
- Gain workflow efficiency in your sepsis and inflammation testing with rapid turnaround time.