[New reflections on inflammation and coagulation]

Inflammation is the host's defense mechanism to infection or injury, including surgical procedures. In the clinical setting non-infectious inflammation, activation of the coagulation cascade and deterioration of endothelial function play an important role in cardiology (e.g. percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, PTCA), intensive care medicine (e.g. polytrauma), cardiac (e.g. extracorporal circulation) and vascular surgery (e.g. reperfusion injury). Imbalances in the inflammatory response are mainly responsible for the often fatal course in conditions such as myocardial infarction, sepsis, hemorrhagic fever (ebola, dengue), graft rejection and autoimmune diseases. Great efforts are being undertaken worldwide to understand the regulation of inflammation in order to develop new drugs which can modulate the pathologic inflammation reaction.