ABSTRACT
Although clinicians recognized the pathophysiological importance of inflammatory mediators in the heart as early as 1669,1 the formal recognition that inflammatory mediators were activated in the setting of hypertrophy and/or heart failure did not occur for another three centuries. Beginning with the original description of inflammatory cytokines in patients with heart failure in 1990,2 there has been an enduring interest in delineating the role that these molecules play in regulating cardiac structure and function in a variety of different pathophysiological contexts. Accordingly, the intent of the present chapter will be to summarize the current understanding of the role that these molecules play in regulating cardiac hypertrophy, cardiac remodeling and myocardial dysfunction.
