Insulitis

Is used in medicine as insulitis denotes an inflammatory infiltration of immune system cells in the islets of Langerhans of the pancreas ( pancreas). At one insulitis CD4-positive T lymphocytes are predominantly involved, beyond antigen-presenting cells such as macrophages and dendritic cells and to a lesser extent B lymphocytes and CD8 T cells play a role.

The occurrence of insulitis is documented by pathological- histological studies both in patients with newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus in childhood (type 1 diabetes ) as well as in animal models of this disease, such as the BB rat and the NOD mouse. It is therefore most likely a process with a central causal role in the demise of the insulin- producing beta cells in the islets of Langerhans that leads to type 1 diabetes. The exact processes that contribute to the emergence of this form of diabetes, however, have been as well as the events that trigger insulitis, so far not been elucidated in detail. Possible causes of insulitis among other viral infections and other environmental factors are discussed.

The description of insulitis in the pancreatic tissue of patients who had died in infancy shortly after the onset of diabetes mellitus, by Philip Medford LeCompte and Willy Gepts wore next to the later discovery of autoantibodies to beta cell-specific antigens and the detection of the association of genes in the major histocompatibility complex on the chromosome 6 crucial role in the type - 1 diabetes, that this is considered an autoimmune disease that is due to a misdirected immune response against the body's own tissues. Since insulitis is thus regarded as a preliminary stage of type 1 diabetes, a slowdown or other modulation of the underlying inflammatory processes by immunotherapeutic measures as a possible approach to a prevention of the disease is.