Two clinical cases of nonspecific aortoarteritis

Abstract

Non-specific aortoarteritis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the aorta and its main branches with the stenosis or occlusion development of the affected blood vessels and secondary ischemia of organs and tissues. The main clinical symptoms most often are pulselessness or low-tension pulse on one of hands, the asymmetry of brachial artery systolic blood pressure, intermittent claudication, weakness, weight loss. Non-specific aortoarteritis is an uncommon condition for general practitioners, and the disease manifestations are often interpreted as symptoms of another pathology. It causes large number of diagnostic and tactical mistakes in management of these patients. The relative rarity of nonspecific aortoarteritis becomes one of the factors determining the complexity and time lag of its diagnosis, inadequate treatment, what leads to early disability and high risk of life-threatening complications development. The article considers two clinical cases of non-specific aortoarteritis. In one of them abdominal pain syndrome is on the foreground, in the other - cephalalgia. Often clinicians consider given symptoms in young people as a manifestation of dyspepsia (in the first patient) and one of the vasoneurosis symptoms (in the second one). The difficulty in diagnosis is that there is no specific laboratory and instrumental symptoms which are pathognomonic for nonspecific aortoarteritis as in other vasculitis.