abstract background and objective: c- reactive protein (crp), as an acute phase reactant and a reliable marker of inflammation, increases due to inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arteritis and infectious conditions. new evidence shows that vitamin d may have important effects on adjusting and reducing the immune responses. the aim of this study was to evaluate the association between ser...

N Engl J Med 2003;349:160-9. Copyright © 2003 Massachusetts Medical Society. nflammation of large arteries such as the aorta and its major branches occurs in a number of disorders, including Kawasaki’s syndrome, Behçet’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, syphilis, and tuberculosis. However, aortitis and large-vessel arteritis are characteristics of two entities — giant-cell (temporal) arteritis a...

We encountered the rare case of a 48-year-old Caucasian woman who developed Takayasu arteritis (TA) while suffering from seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Several studies have reported an association between TA and various autoimmune disorders, however, the concurrent presence of Takayasu arteritis and rheumatoid arthritis is described in only few cases in the literature to date. The exac...

PURPOSE To report multiple occlusive retinal arteritis as a complication of rheumatoid arthritis. CASE A 67-year-old woman developed superotemporal branch retinal artery occlusion in both eyes, together with arterial sheathing and large cotton wool patches around the optic disc, in the course of rheumatoid arthritis with moderate activity. OBSERVATIONS Fluorescein angiography disclosed dela...

Patients with rheumatoid disease may develop thoracic complications, including pleural effusion, solitary or multiple necrobiotic nodules, pulmonary fibrosis, and Caplan's syndrome.1-3 Although vasculitis occurs in rheumatoid disease in a number of sites, pulmonary vasculitis has received little attention in the literature. We describe a case of acute, localised, necrotising pulmonary arteritis...

Giant cell arteritis may occasionally affect the aorta and larger pulmonary arteries. This can be part of a systemic disease such as necrotising sarcoid granulomatosis or systemic lupus erythematosus, but may also be due to specific conditions, particularly disseminated temporal arteritis (giant cell arteritis). When the pulmonary arteries alone are affected they are usually medium sized and af...

Inflammatory neuropathies may be due to infection (with a specific casual agent identified) including Lyme disease, HIV, Leprosy, Herpes Zoster, Hepatitis B & C. The other group of are Autoimmune or possibly infectious (but with no specific causal infectious agent identified) including sarcoidosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome/ acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy ( AIDP), chronic in...

Four patients are presented with small bowel infarction secondary to a vascular arteritis. In three patients there was a history of rheumatoid arthritis. In each patient infarcted bowel was resected and a primary anastomosis performed. In one patient the anastomosis broke down and she subsequently died. One patient died from a disseminated rectal tumour three years later. The remaining patients...