Vasculitis is an inflammatory disease of the blood vessels and has ranked for a long time as a very rare ailment and is still largely rating as such. But thanks to modern examination methods and especially since the discovery of the specific auto-antibodies (ANCA), vasculitides are being diagnosed more frequently.Vasculitis belongs to the group of autoimmune-diseases where the cause for the immune system to start the "crazed rampage" against the patient's own body is yet to a large extent inexplicable.
Since vessels are located allover the body, all organs can be affected. That is one of the reasons why this disease with its many facets, its stunning variety of different symptoms, is, if diagnosed at all, only diagnosed correctly after a long suffering and a long Odyssey from doctor to doctor. The symptoms range from less threatening abnormalities of small areas of the skin to life-threatening failure of the lungs or frequently the kidneys.
Unfortunately many physicians are neither well informed nor trained in treating or diagnosing vasculitis.
updated 25.01.2003