Early endovascular experience for treatments of Takayasu's arteritis.
BACKGROUND
Takayasu's arteritis (TA) is a chronic inflammatory disease that involves the aorta and its major branches; however, only limited data are available on TA in Taiwan. This study presents the clinical features, angiographic findings, and response to treatment of patients with TA at a single institute in Taiwan.


METHODS
A search of the hospital database for ICD9 code 446.7 (Takayasu's disease) between 1990 and 2010 was performed. Seven cases fulfilled the 1990 American College of Rheumatology diagnostic criteria for Takayasu's disease. Angiographic classification was made according to the guidelines of the 1994 International TA Conference in Tokyo.


RESULTS
All of our cases were female, and the median age at diagnosis was 27.5 years (range 14-36 years). Four patients had an angiographic classification of type I (57.1%), two were classified as type V (28.6%), and one was classified as type III (14.3%). The most common symptoms/signs were dizziness and vascular bruits. Two patients underwent bypass surgery, four endovascular stenting, and one hybrid bypass with stenting. After a mean follow-up period of 50.3 ± 68.2 months (range 12.3-199.6 months), both the procedure success and survival rates were 100%. There were four restenosis cases (57.1%), one in the surgical bypass group without symptoms (33.3%), and three in the endovascular group (60%), five restenosis in 14 stents (35.7%). Also, these three patients received secondary endovascular procedure for percutaneous transluminal angioplasty or restenting.


CONCLUSIONS
There have not been any case series reports about treatments of Takayasu's disease in Taiwan to date, based on a search of the PubMed/MEDLINE and Cochrane Library databases. Although endovascular treatment is becoming more prevalent, the restenosis rate is still high, and long-term follow-up and further strategy for restenosis management are the main challenges.
Division of Cardiovascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
Tsung-Hsing
TH
Lee
I-Ming
IM
Chen
Wei-Yuan
WY
Chen
Chi-Feng
CF
Weng
Chiao-Po
CP
Hsu
Chun-Che
CC
Shih
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011859:Radiography; D013625:Takayasu Arteritis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000628:therapy*