Coronary and peripheral vascular occlusion due to rheumatoid arteritis.

Introduction Vasculitis is a well recognized complication of rheumatoid arthritis tending to occur in individuals with severe seropositive nodular disease. It commonly affects small vessels, particularly the digital arteries where the lesion is usually intimal proliferation without significant arterial wall necrosis. Focal ischaemic micro-infarction often occurs, occasionally leading to localized gangrene. Involvement of major vessels is less well recognized although abdominal apoplexy (Webb and Payne, 1970), cerebral vasculitis (Ramos and Mandybur, 1975) and coronary arteritis (Baggenstoss and Rosenberg, 1941) have been described. No reports, it seems, exist of iliac artery occlusion.