The first-line treatment of osteoarthritis is based on anti-inflammatory drugs, the most currently used being nonsteroidal selective cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) inhibitors and corticoids. Most them present cytotoxicity low bioavailability in physiological conditions, making necessary administration high drug concentrations causing several side effects. goal this work was to encapsulate three hydro...

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic condition characterized by abdominal pain and altered bowel habit, in the absence of demonstrable structural gastrointestinal (GI) abnormality. Essentially, the gut functions abnormally -people experience symptoms of pain, diarrhea and/or constipation, but no abnormality of the bowel can be identified by standard medical tests. Numerous research studi...

Blood coagulation could be recognized as intrinsic inflammation. The coagulant mediators (FVIIa, FXa, thrombin (FIIa), FXIIa) and fibrin(ogen) activate cellular signaling, eliciting the production of cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, and other proinflammatory mediators. Hypercoagulability with elevated coagulant mediators would certainly trigger hyper-inflammatory state not to mention abou...

30 31 Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is one of the most common problems in clinical 32 practice today. It is widely believed that functional and structural abnormalities of the 33 gastroesophageal junction as well as an abnormal exposure to gastroduodenal contents are the 34 main contributors to its pathogenesis. Novel findings of the inflammatory process in GERD 35 suggest a far more c...

Silicosis continues to be a lung disease with significant morbidity and mortality. Although silicainduced lung injury and cell activation and/or death has been investigated over the past several years, basic research continues to reveal the cell: cell and cell: mediator interactions critical to these events. This Chapter will emphasize the production and participation of several inflammatory cy...

Smoke inhalation occurs in 10% to 30% of patients admitted to burn centers, and increases mortality by a maximum of 20% over that predicted by age and extent of cutaneous burn alone. Pneumonia in these patients then further increases mortality by a maximum of 40%. While one estimate suggested that 75% of deaths following burn injury may be accounted for by inhalation injury, more recent cohort ...

Ischemic proliferative retinopathy develops in various retinal disorders, including retinal vein occlusion, diabetic retinopathy and retinopathy of prematurity. Ischemic retinopathy remains a common cause of visual impairment and blindness in the industrialized world due to relatively ineffective treatment. Oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) is an established model of retinopathy of prematurity a...

Mononuclear phagocytes represent a heterogeneous population of cells with individual subpopulations exerting different pro- or anti-inflammatory functions. CD163 is a monocyte/macrophage specific marker expressed predominantly on cells which possess strong anti-inflammatory potential. The expression of CD163 is strongly induced by anti-inflammatory mediators such as glucocorticoids and interleu...

The angiogenic process involves several cell types and mediators, which interact to establish a specific microenvironment suitable for the formation of new capillaries from pre-existing vessels. Angiogenesis occurs in several physiological and pathological conditions, such as embryo development and wound healing, diabetic retinopathy and tumours. Inflammatory cells, namely monocytes/macrophages...