Pathophysiology: Cellular Injury and Inflammation Flashcards

Question 1

What is Hypertrophy?

Accepted Answer

An increase in the size of individual cells, and therefore of the organ, usually in tissues whose cells cannot divide much, such as heart and skeletal muscle.

Question 2

What is Hyperplasia?

Accepted Answer

An increase in the number of cells in a tissue or organ, possible only in cells that can still divide, often driven by hormones or growth factors.

Question 3

What is Atrophy?

Accepted Answer

A decrease in the size of cells, and of the organ they form, as cells break down their own components in response to reduced workload, blood supply, nerve input, nutrition or hormones.

Question 4

What is Metaplasia?

Accepted Answer

A reversible change in which one mature, differentiated cell type is replaced by another mature cell type that can better withstand a particular stress.

Question 5

What is Dysplasia?

Accepted Answer

Disordered cell growth in which cells vary in size and shape and lose their normal orderly arrangement; it is often a precancerous change but can regress if the cause is removed.

Question 6

What is Hypoxia?

Accepted Answer

A deficiency of oxygen that reduces aerobic respiration in cells; it is one of the most common causes of cell injury and can result from poor blood flow, lung disease or reduced oxygen-carrying capacity.

Question 7

What is Ischemia?

Accepted Answer

A reduction in blood supply to a tissue, which cuts off both oxygen and nutrients and lets waste products build up, so it injures cells faster than low oxygen alone.

Question 8

Define Reversible Cell Injury.

Accepted Answer

Early cellular damage from which a cell can fully recover if the harmful stimulus is removed, marked mainly by cellular swelling and fatty change.

Question 9

Define Cellular Swelling.

Accepted Answer

Accumulation of water inside an injured cell after its energy-dependent membrane ion pumps fail; also called hydropic change, it is the earliest and most common sign of reversible injury.

Question 10

Define Fatty Change.

Accepted Answer

The accumulation of lipid droplets in the cytoplasm of injured cells, seen mainly in cells that handle fat, such as hepatocytes; also called steatosis.

Question 11

Define Irreversible Cell Injury.

Accepted Answer

Damage severe enough that the cell cannot recover even if the cause is removed, marked by failure of mitochondrial function and profound damage to cell membranes.

Question 12

Define Reactive Oxygen Species.

Accepted Answer

Highly reactive oxygen-derived molecules, such as superoxide and the hydroxyl radical, that damage lipids, proteins and DNA; cells neutralize them with antioxidants and enzymes like catalase.

Question 13

Define Reperfusion Injury.

Accepted Answer

Additional tissue damage that occurs when blood flow returns to ischemic but still living tissue, caused by a burst of free radicals, calcium overload and incoming inflammatory cells.

Question 14

What is Pyknosis?

Accepted Answer

Shrinkage of a dying cell's nucleus, which turns small, dense and dark-staining as its DNA condenses into a solid mass.

Question 15

What is Karyorrhexis?

Accepted Answer

Fragmentation of a dying cell's condensed nucleus into many small pieces, a nuclear change seen in both necrosis and apoptosis.

Question 16

What is Karyolysis?

Accepted Answer

The fading of a dying cell's nucleus as enzymes called DNases digest its DNA, until the nucleus no longer takes up stain at all.

Question 17

What is Necrosis?

Accepted Answer

Unregulated death of cells in living tissue in which membranes fail, cell contents leak out and are digested by enzymes, and the surrounding tissue becomes inflamed; it is always pathological.

Question 18

What is Apoptosis?

Accepted Answer

A regulated, energy-dependent program of cell death in which the cell shrinks, condenses its chromatin and breaks into membrane-bound apoptotic bodies that phagocytes remove.

Question 19

Define Coagulative Necrosis.

Accepted Answer

A pattern of necrosis in which the basic outline of dead cells and tissue is preserved for days; it is typical of ischemic death in solid organs other than the brain.

Question 20

Define Liquefactive Necrosis.

Accepted Answer

A pattern of necrosis in which dead cells are completely digested into a soft, viscous liquid, seen in bacterial or fungal infections and in hypoxic death of brain tissue.

Question 21

Define Caseous Necrosis.

Accepted Answer

A pattern of necrosis in which dead tissue becomes white, soft and crumbly like cheese, usually found at the center of a granuloma.

Question 22

Define Fat Necrosis.

Accepted Answer

Focal destruction of fat tissue, usually by released pancreatic lipases or trauma, in which freed fatty acids combine with calcium to form chalky white deposits.

Question 23

What is Gangrene?

Accepted Answer

A clinical term for necrosis of a limb, usually the lower leg, after loss of blood supply; it is called dry when coagulative and wet when bacterial infection liquefies the tissue.

Question 24

What is Inflammation?

Accepted Answer

A protective response of blood vessels, white blood cells and plasma proteins to infection or tissue damage that aims to remove the cause and the dead cells and begin repair.

Question 25

Define Cardinal Signs of Inflammation.

Accepted Answer

The classic local signs of inflammation: redness (rubor), heat (calor), swelling (tumor) and pain (dolor), with loss of function (functio laesa) added later.

Question 26

Define Acute Inflammation.

Accepted Answer

Inflammation that starts within minutes to hours and lasts days, marked by leakage of fluid and plasma proteins and an influx of mainly neutrophils.

Question 27

Define Chronic Inflammation.

Accepted Answer

Prolonged inflammation lasting weeks to years in which active inflammation, tissue destruction and attempted repair by fibrosis happen at the same time, with mainly macrophages, lymphocytes and plasma cells.

Question 28

What is Exudate?

Accepted Answer

Fluid that escapes from blood vessels into tissue with a high protein content and many cells, reflecting increased vascular permeability; it is the typical fluid of inflammation.

Question 29

What is Transudate?

Accepted Answer

Fluid with low protein and few cells that leaves blood vessels because of high hydrostatic pressure or low plasma protein, without any increase in vessel permeability.

Question 30

What is Margination?

Accepted Answer

The movement of white blood cells to the outer edge of the bloodstream, along the vessel wall, as blood flow slows in inflamed venules.

Question 31

What is Diapedesis?

Accepted Answer

The squeezing of white blood cells between endothelial cells to pass out of a venule and into the surrounding tissue; also called transmigration.

Question 32

What is Chemotaxis?

Accepted Answer

Directional movement of white blood cells toward a higher concentration of attracting chemicals, such as bacterial products, complement fragment C5a and chemokines like IL-8.

Question 33

What is Phagocytosis?

Accepted Answer

The process by which a white blood cell recognizes, surrounds and engulfs a particle into a vesicle, which then fuses with lysosomes so the contents can be destroyed.

Question 34

What is Opsonin?

Accepted Answer

A molecule, such as an IgG antibody or the complement fragment C3b, that coats a microbe and binds to receptors on phagocytes, marking it for faster engulfment.

Question 35

What is Histamine?

Accepted Answer

A vasoactive amine stored in mast cells, basophils and platelets that dilates arterioles and makes venules leaky, driving the immediate phase of inflammation.

Question 36

What is Prostaglandins?

Accepted Answer

Lipid mediators made from arachidonic acid by cyclooxygenase enzymes that cause vasodilation, pain and fever during inflammation.

Question 37

Define C-Reactive Protein.

Accepted Answer

An acute-phase protein made by the liver in response to IL-6 that rises in the blood during inflammation and helps coat microbes for phagocytosis.

Question 38

What is Granuloma?

Accepted Answer

A focus of chronic inflammation made of activated macrophages that look like epithelial cells, often with multinucleated giant cells, surrounded by a rim of lymphocytes.

Question 39

What is Abscess?

Accepted Answer

A localized collection of pus, made of neutrophils, dead tissue and fluid, that is walled off from surrounding tissue, usually by a bacterial infection.