Trends in Inflammation Research

The process of inflammation, which causes the swelling and redness around a wound, is a vital part of the body's system for fighting off infections. When the body is hurt, the immune system produces chemical signals telling cells to multiply without dying, allowing skin to close over a gash, for example. Other chemicals spur the growth of new blood vessels to feed the recovering tissue. Scientists have linked inflammation to cancer and recently to heart disease in several ways. Doctors suspect that long-term inflammation or infection is involved in up to 20% of cancers, including those of the oesophagus, colon, skin, stomach, liver, bladder, breast and some kinds of lymphoma. C-reactive protein (CRP) is one of the acute phase proteins that increase during systemic inflammation. It's been suggested that testing CRP levels in the blood may be a new way to assess cardiovascular disease risk. A high sensitivity assay for CRP test (hs-CRP) is now widely available. This book presents recent leading-edge research from around the world.