Systemic vasculitis: symptoms and treatment. Vasculitis - what is this disease?

Vasculitis - what is this disease and how to influence the organism in a complex way in this pathology?

Vascular injury

Blood vessels due to various negative factors can lose their functions, which affects the condition of the whole organism.

Systemic vasculitis is a disease that is associated with pathological changes in the walls of blood vessels. At the present stage, several types of this ailment are distinguished.

Types of systemic disease

The studied types of pathological changes in blood vessels:

1. The defeat of individual segments of arteries of medium or small caliber is called nasal periarthritis.
2. The disease, which primarily affects the arteries and vessels of the respiratory tract and lungs, and then the kidneys, is defined as Wegener's granulomatosis.
3. Systemic vasculitis, the symptoms of which speak of the pathology of large vessels of the body (more often - the head arteries), was called giant-cell temporal arteritis.
4. Inflammatory processes in large arteries and aorta are defined as Takayasu's disease, or aortoarteriitis non-specific.
5. When the pathology touches the arteries of the muscle type, then the disease is defined as a thromboangiitis obliterans.
6. Systemic disease, which is accompanied by symptoms such as stomatitis, pathological changes in the tissues of the mouth and mucous of the genital organs, as well as changes in the eye, was called "Behcet's syndrome."
7. Allergic vasculitis.

All of the above forms are associated with certain causes, which provoke changes in the walls of the vessels and the violation of their functions.

Causes of the disease

To determine the course of rational treatment and preventive measures, it is necessary to know what causes this or that pathological change in the vessel. In this case, systemic vasculitis can have a patient-friendly outcome.

All the factors that provoke the emergence of this pathology have not been thoroughly studied, but several reasons can be assumed:

1. Systemic vasculitis as a reaction of the body to the use of certain medications. A pathological change in the walls of the vessels can also provoke a viral disease, which for a long time was not amenable to treatment.
2. Systemic vasculitis as a complication of some aggressive infectious diseases that have been transferred.
3. Blood vessels can collapse during such diseases as reactive arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory processes in the thyroid gland, chronic autoimmune pathologies, Schwartz-Jampel syndrome, and sometimes glomerulonephritis.

All these factors determine systemic vasculitis. Symptoms and treatment of pathology are not always interrelated, because some manifestations of the disease pass in a latent form, while others, on the contrary, are pushed to the conclusion of an incorrect diagnosis.

What happens in the body? Pathogenesis

The pathology of the vascular system entails dangerous changes in the body, which manifest themselves at different stages of the disease. The essence is that the vessels capture the inflammatory process with the subsequent destruction of their walls.

Each represented kind of vasculitis flows with its own characteristics.

What changes are accompanied by each species?

1. In Behcet's syndrome, there are manifestations in the oral cavity, in particular stomatitis, which occurs with relapses. The second frequent sign can be called ulcers in the scrotum of men, and in women - in the vagina and on the external genitalia. In addition to the mucous membrane, this kind of vasculitis affects the eyeballs in different degrees.
2. Thromboangiitis obliterans is accompanied by such complaints of patients as development of lameness or sudden numbness of the hands.
3. Aortoarteriitis nonspecific gives such consequences as pain in the lower and upper extremities, back pain that is given to the abdomen, as well as fainting and eye-related disorders.

The remaining forms, depending on the severity, are practically not symptomatic, but require an individual approach to treatment.

Symptomatic picture

The symptomatology of vascular disease can change its picture, depending on the localization of the process and pathology that accompany them.

Vasculitis of the skin causes rashes, and pathological disorders in the nervous system lead to increased sensitivity, which can vary from hypersensitivity to reduced sensitivity or complete absence.

When the circulation of cerebral vessels is disturbed, strokes and heart attacks may occur. Allergic vasculitis manifests itself as a typical allergic reaction of the body to the stimulus.

Signs of vascular pathology

There are known common signs of any kind of vasculitis, these are:

• Total or partial loss of appetite;
• Weakness of the body, which appears without reason and is accompanied by apathy;
• Rapid fatigue, both physical and moral;
• Elevated body temperature - subfebrile, only occasionally reaches the febrile;
• Pallor of the skin, associated with a violation of the total blood flow in the body.

What other current has systemic vasculitis? What kind of illness is it and how can it be countered, you can find out by some common signs. For example, the nodular type of vasculitis is manifested by muscular aching pain throughout the body. The pains spread to the stomach, provoke weight loss, intestinal disorders, vomiting, nausea and, as a result, mental disorders.

Wegner's granulomatosis provokes pathologies in the nasal cavity, more precisely, in her sinus - pus, blood and mucus are secreted. Ulcerative processes may occur on the nasal mucosa. Then there is a cough, pain behind the sternum, shortness of breath, kidney failure and others.

Skin lesion

When pathological processes in the vessels are caused by an allergic reaction, then this kind is called skin vasculitis. How does the vasculitis of the skin proceed?

The presented disease has several types of percolation:

• Type one - nodular necrotic, or Werther-Dumpling, is manifested through dermal nodes on the skin of cyanotic color with a brown tinge;
• The second is Ruitor's allergic arteriolitis, which is manifested by typical erythrematous rashes on the skin, as well as by hemorrhagic crusts, ulcers, erosions followed by necrosis.

Diagnosis of systemic vascular disease

The choice of diagnostic methods should be based on external manifestations of vasculitis, but additional measures in the survey are used to determine the latent forms of it.

To start, a potential patient needs to take a blood test to determine the changes in it. When the quantitative indicators of hemoglobin are much lower than normal, this indicates the onset of anemic processes in the body - a serious complication of vascular pathology.

Rarely, but it happens when the diagnosis of "systemic vasculitis" is based on an analysis of urine, if it detects erythrocytes and leukocytes.

The second most significant analysis, but no less important for diagnosis, is biopsy. To this end, the patient needs to take a piece of vessel tissue for microscopic examination.

Systemic vasculitis. Symptoms and Treatment

Depending on whether the allergic is vasculitis or secondary, treatment is prescribed individually, and it is directed not only to treatment of a particular pathology, but also to the restoration of the whole organism, which has suffered significantly against the background of vascular pathology.

The goal of the treatment is complete elimination of the symptoms of the disease, normalization of blood vessels and blood circulation.

Drugs that are effective in systemic vasculitis:

• Corticosteroid drugs;
• Chemotherapeutic drugs;
• Immunosuppressants.

With more aggressive vasculitis, intensive care and treatment is necessary. This is necessary in case of disruption of the vital organs, such as the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys. In this case, the patient is resuscitated with the subsequent symptomatic treatment.

Vasculitis of the skin should be treated out-patient or in a hospital, depending on the progressiveness of the pathological process. With this disease, the effect of radical sanitation on the foci of infection, which proceeds already in the chronic stage, will be effective.

The patient should adhere to bed rest and take the following drugs:

• Antihistamines, among which the effective drugs for vasculitis are "Diprazin", "Dimedrol", "Fenkarol";
• Preparations of microelement of calcium - 10% injection of calcium chloride or gluconate solution;
• Rutin, ascorbic acid.

If inefficiencies are applied, more complex therapies using hormonal drugs, such as medications "Prednisolone" and "Dexamethasone".

When the disease is accompanied by ulcerative and necrotic processes, the treatment includes topical application of the glucocorticoid ointment ("Borno-naphthalan", "Metuluracil" ointments and others), epithelioplastic drugs.

With prolonged, but ineffective treatment, angiotrophic agents are used. These are preparations "Dobesilat-calcium", "Xanthinal nicotinate" and others.

What is the prognosis of this disease?

The prognosis depends on the type of vasculitis and severity of the disease. Early diagnosis and timely treatment can significantly prolong the life of the patient. It is very important to correctly diagnose and develop an optimal treatment regimen. It is necessary to choose the right medicines and dosage in order to avoid complications and side effects.

It is impossible to predict the outcome of a disease in advance, such as systemic vasculitis. Treatment, most likely, will have to last a lifetime. Usually the disease proceeds in a chronic form, and the periods of exacerbation are followed by periods of remission. Vasculitis is not completely cured. A person must constantly visit a doctor and control the symptoms.