This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Lack of Evidence for a Causative Role

Fujio Numano, MD; Hidenori Maezawa, MD; Shigemasa Sawada, MD; Norman Talal, MD; Argyrios N. Theofilopoulos, MD

Arch Intern Med. 1981;141(2):162-163.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Takayasu disease is well known by its characteristic clinical feature of pulselessness and by the epidemiologic fact that most patients are young females from Asian or South American areas. The cause of the disease remains obscure. An autoimmune mechanism is generally accepted as the cause, but certain clinical and laboratory data do not support this hypothesis.

We investigated the circulating immune complex (CIC) levels in Takayasu disease, as they play an important role in the induction of injury to tissues in the heart, blood vessels, and kidneys. We found that CICs are not the primary causative factor in this condition, although they may accelerate or modify the pathophysiologic state.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Blood samples were obtained from 34 women and three men (mean age, 33.5 ± 1.8 years) with Takayasu disease and 33 young, healthy women (21.2 ± 0.8 years of age). These samples were immediately divided into two sterile . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Department of Medicine Tokyo Medical and Dental University 5-45, Yushima I-chome, Bunkyo-ku Tokyo 113, Japan; Veterans Administration Hospital San Francisco; Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation La Jolla, Calif

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?