Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffIn 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 serious 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. In the United States, most people with Takayasu's arteritis have no history of tuberculosis.
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.
- Anton E. Large vessel arteritis: A diagnostic challenge in the elderly. Journal of Clinical Pathology. 2005;58(7):782.
- Vasculitis syndromes of the central and peripheral nervous systems fact sheet. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/vasculitis/detail_vasculitis.htm. Accessed Aug. 8, 2008.
- Johnston SL, et al. Takayasu arteritis: A review. Journal of Clinical Pathology. 2002;55(7):481-486.
- Takayasu's arteritis. Merck Manuals Online Medical Library. http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec05/ch069/ch069f.html. Accessed Aug. 8, 2008.
- Kis B, et al. Severe supraaortal atherosclerotic disease resembling Takayasu's arteritis. Vascular Health Risk Management. 2007;3(3):351-354.
- Kissin EY, et al. Diagnostic imaging in Takayasu arteritis. Current Opinion in Rheumatology. 2004;16(3):31-37.
- Liang P, et al. Advances in the medical and surgical treatment of Takayasu arteritis. Current Opinion in Rheumatology. 2005;17(1):16-24.
- de Franciscis S, et al. The management of Takayasu's arteritis: Personal experience. Annals of Vascular Surgery. 2007;21(6):754-760.
