Takayasu’s arteritis is a rare type of vasculitis, a group of disorders that cause blood vessel inflammation. In Takayasu’s ateritis, the inflammation damages the aorta — the large artery that carries blood from your heart to the rest of your body — and the aorta’s main branches. This can lead to arm or chest pain, high blood pressure, and eventually to heart failure or stroke. Takayasu’s arteritis mainly affects young girls and women under 40.
Known causes
In Takayasu’s arteritis, the aorta and other major arteries, including those leading to your head and kidneys, become inflamed. Over time, the inflammation causes changes in these arteries, including thickening, narrowing and scarring. The result is reduced blood flow to vital tissues and organs, which can lead to complications and even death.
Just what causes the initial inflammation in Takayasu’s arteritis isn’t known. Some experts believe infection plays a role in the disease, particularly because people who have Takayasu’s arteritis often have or have had tuberculosis, but the association between these two illnesses isn’t clear. Another theory is that Takayasu’s arteritis is an autoimmune disease, in which your immune system malfunctions and attacks your own arteries as if they were foreign substances.
Identify it
Symptoms of Takayasu’s arteritis often occur in two stages. In the first stage, you’re likely to feel unwell, with fatigue, night sweats, rapid weight loss, muscle or joint pain and fever, sometimes.
The second-stage symptoms begin to develop when inflammation has caused arteries to narrow, reducing the amount of blood, oxygen and nutrients reaching your tissues. These symptoms may include arm weakness or pain with use (claudication), lightheadedness, headaches, visual disturbances, high blood pressure, difference in blood pressure between your two arms, diminished or absent pulse in the wrists — Takayasu’s arteritis is sometimes called pulseless disease because narrowed arteries can make normal pulses difficult or impossible to detect, mild anemia, which may make you feel tired or weak, chest pain.
Treatment
The goal of treatment is to control inflammation and prevent further damage to your blood vessels, with the fewest long-term side effects. It can sometimes be difficult to treat because even if you appear to be in remission, disease activity may still continue. On the other hand, if your condition is relatively stable you may not need treatment at all. Treatment usually consists of medications and, in some cases, surgery.
Medications may include corticosteroids, cytotoxic drugs, TNF-alpha inhibitors. If your arteries become severely narrowed or blocked, surgery may be necessary to open or bypass these arteries. Often, this helps to improve symptoms. In some cases, though, narrowing or blockage may recur, requiring a second procedure. Procedures used include bypass surgery, percutaneous angioplasty and stenting.