In the investigation of six patients with giant cell arteritis and abnormal liver function radionuclide liver scans were found to be abnormal in all. The abnormality may be due to arteritis of hepatic vessels. It is important to recognise that giant cell arteritis may cause liver scan abnormalities. If other pathology is suspected and corticosteroid treatment delayed while further investigation...

Temporal arteritis is most common vasculitis in elderly and imitated by miscellaneous disorders. Temporal artery biopsy is the gold standard test in the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis (GCA). Hereby, we describe a case of a 67-year-old man who presented initially with temporal arteritis; however, a lip biopsy then revealed AL amyloidosis. In this respect, temporal artery biopsy should be perf...

N Engl J Med 2003;349:160-9. Copyright © 2003 Massachusetts Medical Society. nflammation of large arteries such as the aorta and its major branches occurs in a number of disorders, including Kawasaki’s syndrome, Behçet’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, syphilis, and tuberculosis. However, aortitis and large-vessel arteritis are characteristics of two entities — giant-cell (temporal) arteritis a...

Takayasu arteritis is a chronic vasculitis of unknown origin. Its incidence is low in the United States and Europe (1 to 3 new cases per year per million population) (9,17,28). Sporadically, association between Takayasu arteritis and inflammatory bowel disease has been described, both in Crohn’s disease (5-7, 13, 15,17,19,23,29,31,32,38,40,41,43,50,52,54) and ulcerative colitis (1,3,4,8,14,22,2...

Patients with Takayasu arteritis often present with reduced vision related either to the disease per se or due to complications of therapy. We report a patient with Takayasu arteritis who developed acute onset bilateral visual loss 6wks following percutaneous revascularization of occluded aortic arch branches. No ocular cause for the visual loss was evident. The reason for visual loss in this p...

Takayasu’s arteritis is an idiopathic, inflammatory disease which involves largeand medium-sized arteries, specially the aorta, its major branches and the pulmonary arteries. In contrast to other vasculitides, Takayasu’s arteritis is restricted to certain geographical areas. Initially thought to be confined to Japan and Korea, it has now been reported with increased frequency in Mexico, India, ...

INTRODUCTION Takayasu arteritis is a relatively rare type of large-vessel arteritis that primarily affects the aorta and its major branches, the coronary arteries, and the pulmonary arteries. Depending on the different groups of blood vessels involved in the disease process, the clinical presentation of Takayasu arteritis varies. Here we report a case of a woman presenting with a debilitating m...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to describe typical ultrasonographic findings of vertebral arteries in patients affected by giant cell arteritis. METHODS Color duplex sonography was used to asses the cervical arteries within 24 hours from stroke onset in 1237 patients. Vertebral arteritis was considered if concentric, homogeneous, and smooth hypoechogenic mural thickening...

Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) is an uncommon disorder characterized by bilateral pain and stiffness in the shoulder and pelvic girdles. Polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis (GCA) occur in the same patient population and share a common pathogenesis. Giant cell arteritis predominantly affects the cranial arteries and rarely involves the gastrointestinal tract. Moreover, giant cell arter...

Takayasu's arteritis is an inflammatory disease with a variety of manifestations, such as cardiac involvement. We describe a 52-year-old woman with clinical and echocardiographic manifestations mimicking infectious endocarditis, such as periaortic and mital-aortic intervalvular fibrosa abscess with extension to the anterior mitral leaflet. However, no infective tissue was discovered intraoperat...