Cell Changes and Inflammation Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering concepts of cell adaptation, cell injury, cellular death, necrosis types, gangrene, and inflammatory responses.

Cell Adaptation and Injury Flowchart

A visual representation of cellular pathways showing how a normal cell (in homeostasis) responds to stress through adaptation, or to injurious stimuli through cell injury, reversible injury, and repair.

Atrophy

Reversible cellular adaptation that results in a decrease in cell size, leading to fewer organelles and cytoplasm.

Ischaemia

Decreased blood flow to tissues or organs.

Hypertrophy

Reversible cellular adaptation in response to increased workload or stimulation, resulting in an increase in cell size.

Hyperplasia

Reversible cellular adaptation that results in an increased number of cells, usually occurring in cells that divide more frequently.

Compensatory Hyperplasia

A type of hyperplasia that results due to the loss of tissue.

Metaplasia

Transformation or change from one cell type to another, usually occurring in epithelial tissue in response to a stressor to better respond.

Dysplasia

A reversible change resulting in abnormal shape, size, and number of cells when metaplasia goes off course; not a true adaptation or cancer, but strongly linked to cancer.

Hypoxia

The condition of not having enough oxygen, usually caused by ischaemia or hypoxaemia.

Hydropic Swelling

Reversible cell injury where a decrease in ATP causes an inability to move out sodium, leading to more water entering the cell via osmosis.

Apoptosis

An active process of self-destruction, also known as programmed cell death, which can be physiological or pathological.

Necrosis

Passive cell death that is always pathological and occurs via autolysis or autodigestion, triggering inflammation and damage to surrounding cells.

Coagulative Necrosis

A type of necrosis often due to hypoxic damage where ruptured cells make surrounding tissues more acidic and denature proteins, turning them grey to opaque.

Liquefactive Necrosis

A type of necrosis often due to ischaemia where enzymes break down debris and cell parts, liquefying the dead tissue.

Caseous Necrosis

A type of necrosis characterized by a cheese-like appearance where tissue is not fully digested, commonly seen in lung tissue from tuberculosis.

Fat Necrosis

A type of necrosis in which lipase breaks down lipids to form free fatty acids that undergo saponification.

Gangrene

A large area of tissue that undergoes necrosis.

Dry Gangrene

A type of gangrene usually caused by ischaemia and dominated by coagulative necrosis, appearing dry, shrinking, and blackened.

Wet Gangrene

A type of gangrene dominated by liquefactive necrosis that is cold, swollen, black, and usually caused by infection.

Gas Gangrene

A type of gangrene caused by infection with Clostridium bacteria, which produce hydrogen sulfide gas that gets trapped in tissues as bubbles.

Infarction

Tissue death due to ischaemia caused by sudden occlusion of blood supply to the tissue.

Calor

The sign of acute inflammation corresponding to heat, caused by increased blood flow.

Rubor

The sign of acute inflammation corresponding to redness or erythema, caused by increased blood flow (specifically erythrocytes).

Fibrinous Inflammation

A type of inflammation where fibrinous exudate thickens tissue due to high levels of fibrin entering tissue via endothelial retraction.

Serous Inflammation

A type of inflammation characterized by watery fluid with little protein, appearing as a blister under the skin following a burn.

Abscess

Pus or purulent discharge containing dead leukocytes (mainly neutrophils), cell debris, and proteins, occurring due to bacterial infections.

Chronic Inflammation

Inflammation lasting $> 2\text{ weeks}$ and persisting for weeks, months, or years, characterized by infiltration of macrophages and lymphocytes in the affected area.

Granulomatous Inflammation

A form of chronic inflammation with granulomas where transformed macrophages form giant multi-nucleated cells surrounded by lymphocytes to wall off injurious agents.