On June 28-29, 1990 in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, the International Association of Inflammation societies (IAIS) organized their first symposium on Drugs in Inflammation. The symposium was an official satellite of the Ixth International Congress of Pharmacology (IUPHAR). This volume contains the proceedings from this satellite meeting. The IAIS was constituted in 1988 when representatives of the Inflammation Research Association (IRA), European Workshop on Inflammation (EWI) and British Inflammation Research Association (BIRAs) met at White Haven, Pennsylvania during the Fourth International...

Bronchial asthma is a disease with many unsolved problems and despite an increased availabili ty of anti-asthma drugs, morbidi ty and mortality from this disease are not improving. It is now recognized that asthma should be considered as a chronic inflammatory disease of the lung resulting in bronchial hyperreactivity and subsequent symptoms. The mechanisms underlying airways inflammation and bronchial hyperreactivity have now become a focal point of research in the quest for knowledge about how the management of this disease can be improved. Platelet activating factor (PAF-acether AGEPC) is...

Epidemiological studies of Chronic Bronchitis/ Chronic Obstructive Airway Disease (CB/COAD) have demonstrated that hypersecretory glandular activity, as weIl as infections, are not the most important risk factors determining the serious decline in lung function in this disease. Instead, inflammatory indices are emerging as characteristic features of the pathology and pathophysiology of CB/COAD. It is possible that continuous inflammatory processes cause structural changes and thus provide the anatomical basis for airway obstruction which, once estab- lished, is only partly reversible. We feIt...

The last twenty years have witnessed enormous efforts by the pharmaceutical industry in the search for new drugs for the treatment of asthma. During this time, as a result of the efforts of asthma researchers in many disciplines, there has been an unprecedented increase in our knowledge about asthma as a disease and about the pharmacology of the existing anti-asthma drugs. This increase in knowledge should have generated information from which directions for future anti-asthma drug research and development might be predicted. Thus, we felt it was timely to invite a group of leading...

Since the rheumatic diseases are among the most prevalent of conditions, the anti-rheumatic drugs make up one of the largest groups of drugs prescribed. They vary from the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs through to the complex imrnunomodulators. There are significant differences between these groups of drugs as regards their mechanism of action and within each spectrum of adverse reactions, yet there is also some overlap. class there are also subtle individual differences between the drugs despite a sharing of the basic mechanisms of action and range of side effects. It is this...

Under the generous chairmanship of Professor Dr. med. Werner Kaufmann we organized the international symposium on "VASODEPRESSOR HORMONES IN HYPERTENSION - PROSTAGLANDINS AND KININS" held in Nuremberg (FRG) as an official satellite symposium to the Meeting of the International Society of Hypertension 1986. This supplement brings together the most interesting papers presented at this symposium. In the past there were hundreds of publications in both fields, the prostaglandins and the kallikrein-kinins and there were a lot of information indic ting that these two systems influence each other...

This volume of "Agents and Actions Supplements" provided a challenge to the editors, the authors and the publisher. It was our aim to complete the book in advance of the lectures to be given at the "International Symposium on Asthma and Allergic Diseases in Childhood," in Berne, Switzerland, on March 25th-27th, 1993. This symposium commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Swiss Association of Parents of Asthmatic and Allergic Children. The incidence of asthma and allergies generally is on the increase and demands everyone's attention, including that of physicians, researchers, allied health...

On May 24-27,1992 the European Society ofOsteoarthrology (ESOA) held its 19th sympo- sium in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The symposium was entitled "Joint destruction in arthritis and osteoarthritis" and sought to combine both clinical and experimental studies in this field. The present volume contains the proceedings of this meeting. The ESOA has organized most of its symposia in the eastern part of Europe, thanks to major input from Stanislav Havelka, who in recent years has been supported by Heikki Helminen. In appreciation of his efforts Stan Havelka was granted Honorary...

Ten years ago interest in leukocyte chemotaxis was restricted to a relatively small group of scientists whose interests were quite circumscribed. In the past decade both the number of workers and their publications has grown at some- thing approaching an exponential rate and, more importantly, the field has gradually expanded to encompass a large number of diverse areas (mediators, receptors, cell effector mechanisms, regulatory factors, etc.). It is now apparent that leukocytes are particularly useful for studies of the locomotory behavior of all cell types and of mechanisms controlling cell...

The contri buti ons to the workshops inc 1 uded short revi ews by i nvi ted speakers as well as research papers sel ected by the Chai nnen from the poster abstracts received. The afternoons were free for discussion and recreation but delegates reassanbled with the help of Hunter Valley Wines two hours before dinner to review the many posters presented. On the evenings of the 27th and 28th May, four review lectures were given by J. Dingle (The role of messengers of the IL-I/Catabolin type in cartilage turnover), R. Poole (Immunochemistry as applied to the study of connective tissues), W....