Böcker i Immunology and Medicine-serien

The role of the immune response in both the pathology of liver disease and in the modulation ofliver injury has been the subject of intense research. Further chapters are devoted to the three major autoimmune liver diseases which are thought to be the result of loss of tolerance to autologous liver tissue.

The eye can become involved in immune-mediated diseases that affect it alone or as part of a multi-organ disease process. Much immunological attention has been focused on other organs affected by these processes and the subject of the immunology of eye diseases is a relatively new one.

Immunotherapy began in 1774 when the Dorset farmer Benjamin Jesty inoculated his wife and two sons with the pus from the teat of a cow suffering from cow pox, using his wife's knitting needle as a vaccinating implement.

Of central importance in autoimmunity is the relationship between antigen pre senting cells (including B cells) expressing MHC class II molecules, autoan tigenic peptides, T helper lymphocytes, and various effector cells.

Our understanding of inflammation has increased rapidly in recent years, due in large part to the impact of molecular biology and gene identification and cloning.

In that relatively short period of time, study of the disease has moved from the level of early clinical description to exhaustive and extensive laboratory characterization of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the immune responses directed towards it and reasons for their failure.

Gastrointestinal diseases present a considerable problem in human medicine in terms of both morbidity and mortality. the immunological features of idiopathic inflammatory gut diseases such as Crohn's disease and intractable diarrhoea; the iatrogenic diseases of the gut such as graft-versus-host disease and small bowel allografts;

Connective tissue diseases demand study because of their frequency, morbidity and mortality. The book presents up-to-date reviews of the immunological basis of connective tissue diseases as it impacts on diagnosis, pathogenetic concepts, disease monitoring and management.

In that relatively short period of time, study of the disease has moved from the level of early clinical description to exhaustive and extensive laboratory characterization of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the immune responses directed towards it and reasons for their failure.