Brunner & Suddarth's Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing 14e (Hinkle 2017) - Assessment of Immune Function Related

Review Brunner & Suddarth's Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing 14e (Hinkle 2017) - Assessment of Immune Function related questions and content

A 16-year-old has been brought to the emergency department by his parents after falling through the glass of a patio door, suffering a laceration. The nurse caring for this patient knows that the site of the injury will have an invasion of what?

  • A. Interferons
  • B. Phagocytic cells
  • C. Apoptosis
  • D. Cytokines
Correct Answer: B

Rationale: Monocytes migrate to injury sites and function as phagocytic cells, engulfing, ingesting, and destroying greater numbers and quantities of foreign bodies or toxins than granulocytes. This occurs in response to the foreign bodies that have invaded the laceration from the dirt on the broken glass. Interferon, one type of biologic response modifier, is a nonspecific viricidal protein that is naturally produced by the body and is capable of activating other components of the immune system. Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is the bodys way of destroying worn out cells such as blood or skin cells or cells that need to be renewed. Cytokines are the various proteins that mediate the immune response. These do not migrate to injury sites.