Manifestations of chronic inflammation

Virtually all organs and tissues can be affected by chronic inflammation, which show quite different clinical pictures. Often, several organs can be affected simultaneously.

Organs often affected by chronic inflammation are the barrier organs, which are in direct contact with the environment. They include, for example, the intestines, the skin and the lungs, which occupy a central role in the Cluster of Excellence "Inflammation at Interfaces". Indeed, research is being conducted on many other disease patterns, since the Cluster's primary goal is understanding the principles of chronic inflammation, which are at the bottom of all chronic inflammations, independent of the affected organs.

Many different tissues can be affected

Numerous diseases are now associated with chronic inflammation: skin diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis, diseases of the gut (intestines) such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, diseases of the brain such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, the lungs such as asthma, the joints such as rheumatoid arthritis, and the gums such as periodontitis, but also atherosclerosis and therefore heart attacks. However, inflammation is rarely the sole cause of a disease. Rather it is part of the interaction of various causes and intensifies the disease processes. Characteristic of chronic inflammation is an increase of inflammatory markers, which can be detected in the blood, such as TNF-alpha (tumor necrosis factor-alpha).