06/05/2002 By Anne MacLennan
Young women with unclear symptoms and laboratory findings of generalised inflammation should be investigated by sonography for early Takayasu arteritis.
Sonography of the carotid and subclavian arteries helps in the early detection of this disease, suggests a study from the Medical Centre for Rheumatology Berlin-Buch and the Institute for Radiology/Angiography, Klinikum Buch, Berlin, Germany.
Takayasu arteritis is a large vessel vasculitis that generally affects young women.
Its diagnosis is not usually established before arterial stenoses or occlusions are present.
To determine if sonography would be useful in the diagnosis of the disease in its earlier stages, W. A. Schmidt and colleagues compared three patients with early disease who had no haemodynamically relevant stenoses with nine patients who were diagnosed in the stenotic/occlusive stage of the disease.
All of the patients were white German females. Researchers performed Colour Doppler sonography and angiography in ll of these cases.
Young women with early disease had general symptoms of fatigue and arthralgia and laboratory signs of inflammation. However, they had neither bruits nor decrease of pulse rate.
תגובות רוצה להצטרף לדיון?
יש להתחבר כדי להגיב.
התחבראין תגובות עדיין. היה הראשון להגיב!