Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Rheumatoid vasculitis may affect almost any organ in the body. The skin and peripheral nerves are the most frequently affected areas. Although major organ system involvement of the kidney, bowel, or heart is much less common, it can result in serious morbidity and mortality, such as renal failure, bowel ischemia, and myocardial infarction. [3]
Studies of patients with lipodermatosclerosis have demonstrated significantly decreased concentrations of cutaneous oxygen associated with decreased capillary density. Capillaries are virtually absent in areas of fibrotic scars, leading to a condition known as atrophie blanche or livedoid vasculopathy.
Livedoid vasculopathy (LV) is an uncommon thrombotic dermal vasculopathy that is characterized by excruciating, recurrent ulcers on the lower limbs. [4] Livedo racemosa, along with painful ulceration in the distal regions of the lower extremities, is the characteristic clinical appearance.
Livedo reticularis is a common skin finding consisting of a mottled reticulated vascular pattern that appears as a lace-like purplish discoloration of the skin. [1] The discoloration is caused by reduction in blood flow through the arterioles that supply the cutaneous capillaries, resulting in deoxygenated blood showing as blue discoloration ().
In a 1985 paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, McCarty and colleagues first described a case series of patients with this disorder, for which they coined the abbreviation RS3PE. [16] RS3PE was initially thought to represent a form of seronegative rheumatoid arthritis but is now believed to be a separate syndrome. [8]
The definite diagnosis of vasculitis is established after a biopsy of involved organ or tissue, such as skin, sinuses, lung, nerve, brain, and kidney. The biopsy elucidates the pattern of blood vessel inflammation. Some types of vasculitis display leukocytoclasis, which is vascular damage caused by nuclear debris from infiltrating neutrophils. [37]
The condition was named after its discoverer, the American physician Augustus Roi Felty (1895–1964), who in 1924 saw a patient with a rare combination of conditions: chronic arthritis, splenomegaly, and leucopenia. [25] His investigation of the medical literature revealed descriptions of four other cases.
Also in support of an immune cause is the finding that at least half of all pyoderma gangrenosum patients suffer from immune-mediated diseases. [1] For instance, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, [4] and monoclonal gammopathies [13] have all been associated with pyoderma gangrenosum. It can also be part of autoinflammatory syndromes ...