Concepts of granulomatous inflammation.

Table 8 lists the patterns of the five discrete tissue reaction patterns of granulomatous inflammation and relates them to the predominant microscopic tissue reaction as well as to the dominant cell type present in the infiltrate. The possibility of a sixth group, granulation tissue, was also considered for this classification schema. The term "granulation tissue" was used by Virchow to define granulomatous inflammation. He probably used this term in a broader context than our present definition of granulation tissue (ie, fibrocapillary proliferation). Using the more narrow and perhaps more precise definition, we think that granulation tissue does not constitute a form of granulomatous inflammation.