What it is
Takayasu arteritis is one of the main forms of large-vessel vasculitis: long-term inflammation of the large arteries, especially the aorta and its branches, that can narrow or block them. It mostly affects young women.
Signs and symptoms
Limb claudication
Pain, cramping, or tiredness in an arm or leg when using it, caused by reduced blood flow.
Constitutional symptoms
General signs of inflammation such as fever, tiredness, and weight loss.
Arterial narrowing and blockage
Inflammation thickens the artery walls so they narrow or close off, which limits blood flow and can starve limbs or organs of blood.
Reduced or absent arm pulses
A weak or missing pulse in the arm, because the artery supplying it is narrowed.
Blood pressure difference between the arms
A noticeably different blood pressure reading in one arm than the other, a sign that an artery is narrowed.
Stroke
A loss of blood flow to part of the brain. In Takayasu arteritis it more often involves the carotid arteries in the neck.
Renal artery narrowing
Narrowing of the arteries that supply the kidneys, which can raise blood pressure and harm kidney function.
High blood pressure
Raised blood pressure, in Takayasu often caused by narrowing of the arteries that supply the kidneys.
Aorta and major-branch involvement
Inflammation centered on the aorta, the body's main artery, and its large branches, which can narrow, block, or balloon them.
How it is diagnosed
Takayasu arteritis
Diagnosed using: Vascular imaging (ultrasound, CT, MRI, PET).
Takayasu arteritis
Diagnosed using: 2022 ACR/EULAR classification criteria.
Treatment and management
What the research describes, not a recommendation. Treatment decisions belong with your clinician.
This covers treatments that appear in the published research mapped here. Investigational and experimental therapies are not included, so their absence is a boundary of this map, not a sign they do not exist.
Glucocorticoids
Steroid medicines that quickly calm inflammation. They are the usual first treatment to bring the disease under control.
Used to help with: Takayasu arteritis.
Tocilizumab
A medicine that blocks the IL-6 inflammatory signal. It is used to control the disease and to reduce how much steroid is needed.
Used to help with: Takayasu arteritis.
TNF inhibitors
Medicines that block the TNF-alpha inflammatory signal, used when the disease keeps relapsing or does not respond to first treatments.
Used to help with: Takayasu arteritis.
Vascular revascularization
A procedure, by surgery or a stent, to reopen or bypass a severely narrowed artery when blood flow to a limb or organ is at risk.
Used to help with: Arterial narrowing and blockage.
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How to read the evidence labels
Where this comes from
This guide is built from 10 published source(s). Every claim above links back to one of them. Click any source ID to read the original on PubMed.