Current StatuS of HypertenSion in takayaSu’S arteritiS

Nonspecific-aortoarteritis or Takayasu’s disease is a rare idiopathic chronic, granulomatous, inflammatory disease of large elastic artery occurring in the young and resulting in typically presenting before the age of 40 years occlusive or ectatic changes mainly in the aorta and its immediate branches as well as pulmonary artery and its branches. It was in 1761, that Morgangi.1 Reported a case of a 40yrs old female with 6yrs absent pulse who subsequently died of pulmonary oedema which can be thought to be the first reported case of TA. In 1908 Takayasu,2 a Japanese ophthalmologist presented a case of a 21yrs old female with disturbed ocular circulation with peculiar changes in central retinal vessels. With Ouishi, Takayasu associated the changes to a disease of the major arteries and reported similar other cases of ocular involvement in patients with absent radial pulse. In India Shikhare3 published the first case report in 1921. In 1962 Sen et al4 reported 4 cases with narrowing of the aorta at unusual sites. The following year he published a clinico-pathological study of 60 cases and coined the term “middle aorta syndrome’. It is predominantly a disease of young females in their second and third decades. Though most study reports on this disease comes from Japan and India it is by no means a geographically restricted disease. Reports of the disease have come from almost all part of the world and no race seems to be immune.