Active clinical trials for "Takayasu Arteritis"

Background: - Vasculitis is a group of diseases that inflame and damage blood vessels and tissue. It can cause many medical problems. Few tests can diagnose the disease, and none can reliably predict a relapse. Researchers want to study people s genes and follow people over time to see how the disease affects them. Objective: - To learn the signs, symptoms, imaging tests, genetic markers, and blood tests that can help identify people with vasculitis and predict what will happen to them over time. Eligibility: People age 3 and older who have or are thought to have vasculitis, or are related to someone with it. Healthy volunteers. Design: Participants will be evaluated by a doctor who has expertise caring for patients with vasculitis. Participants will give a blood sample. Some will give a urine sample. Some participants may have brushings or biopsies taken from the inside lining of the nose. Images of participants blood vessels may be taken using scans. For some scans, participants will lie on a table that moves in and out of a cylinder that takes pictures. For some scans, a contrast agent may be injected into an arm vein. Other scans may use a radioactive form of sugar. Healthy minors will not have scans. Some participants will answer questionnaires. - Some participants will have their tests done at NIH. Others will have their doctor take the blood, saliva, or cheek swab samples and send them to NIH. Some participants will have one visit lasting 1-2 (but sometimes up to 4) days. Some participants may have follow-up visits every 3 - 6 months, indefinitely.

Childhood chronic vasculitis describes a group of rare life-threatening diseases that have in common inflammation of blood vessels in vital organs such as kidneys, lungs and brain. Most knowledge about them comes from adult patients. Severe disease requires aggressive life-saving treatments with steroids and some cancer drugs which can themselves cause damage, and increase risks of cancer and severe infections. Conversely, milder disease can be treated with less toxic drugs. Different classification and "scoring tools" are used to define the types and severity of vasculitis and to measure damage caused by disease or drugs. These in turn help direct how aggressively to treat a patient and to measure outcome. None of these tools however have been assessed in children and the best balance of disease and treatment risks against outcome for children is not known. Although causes of these diseases in children and adults are probably the same, the effects of the disease and the response (good and bad) to drugs will differ in growing children. Because specialists may see only one new child with vasculitis each year, obtaining enough information to learn about childhood vasculitis requires cooperation. We will use an international web-based registry to which doctors from 50 or more centers can contribute patient data. We will determine the features which help better classify and diagnose children compared to adults. Through the web we will collect and analyze information on patients similarly classified and "scored" so that most successful treatments can be identified. Children with vasculitis are less likely to have diseases associated with aging, alcohol and smoking etc., and therefore may be a better group in whom to study the underlying biology of vasculitis. We will use this opportunity and collect spit, blood and tissue from registry patients for laboratory study with an aim to find biomarkers to better classify, define and direct optimal treatment and outcomes.

evaluate the effect of medical treatment and percutaneous transluminal pulmonary angioplasty on takayasu arteritis with pulmonary artery involvement

Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a chronic large-vessel vasculitis that mainly affects the aorta and its major branches. The epidemiology and pathophysiology of TA is still unclear in China, although many studies have been done. Our previous study supporting by National Natural Science Foundation of China indicated the cytokines such as hs-CRP, NT-proBNP and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) can be used to monitor TA activity, and HLA gene alleles were associated with TA in Chinese han population. Further investigations with larger samples are needed to fully understand the a pathophysiology of TA. The purpose of this study is to build a Chinese national registry system for TA to obtain real-world information, such as current status of characteristics, diagnosis, disease activity, the severity of disease, treatment and outcomes of Chinese TA patients. To analysis and development of effective disease monitoring and treatment strategies.

The purpose of this study is to identify genes that increase the risk of developing vasculitis, a group of severe diseases that feature inflammation of blood vessels. Results of these studies will provide vasculitis researchers with insight into the causes of these diseases and generate new ideas for diagnostic tests and therapies, and will be of great interest to the larger communities of researchers investigating vasculitis and other autoimmune, inflammatory, and vascular diseases.

Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a vasculitis of unknown origin, resulting in progressive thickening and stenosis of large and medium arteries (the aorta and its major branches, and the pulmonary arteries). First line therapy of TA consists of high dose corticosteroids (CS) (Mukhtyar et al, 2009). Between 20 and 50% of cases respond to CS alone, with subsequent resolution of symptoms and stabilization of vascular abnormalities (Shelhamer et al, 1985; Maksimowicz-McKinnon et al, 2007). Although second-line agents (methotrexate, azathioprine, mycophenolate mofetil, cyclophosphamide) may result in initial remission, relapses remain common when prednisone is tapered (Maksimowicz-McKinnon et al, 2007). Thus, 50% of CS-resistant or relapsing TA patients may achieve sustained remission with the addition of methotrexate (Hoffman et al, 1994). During the last decade, biologics such as anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (anti-TNFα) and anti-interleukin-6 (anti-IL-6) have been used as third-line treatment in refractory or relapsing TA. Almost 90% of CS-methotrexate resistant TA cases responded to infliximab, an anti-TNFα, and sustained remission was obtained in 37 to 76% of the cases (Schmidt et al, 2012; Comarmond et al, 2012; Mekinian et al, 2012). Tocilizumab, an anti-IL-6 has given similar results with 68% of sustained remission in refractory TA (Abisror et al, 2013). Irrespective of classical cardiovascular risk factors, the systemic inflammation and CS use play a pivotal role in the occurrence of cardiovascular thrombotic events (CVEs) (Roubille et al, 2015). As CVEs overlap with TA complications it is primordial to drastically taper CS in that vasculitis. We therefore aim to analyses prospectively the long term outcome of refractory/relapsing TA patients.

The Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a rare inflammatory large vessel arteritis which often occurs women in Aisa, one of which is China. The rare cases restricted the development of intervention strategy, especially in female patients who plan to be pregnant. So investigators try to recruit as many TA participants as possible to build a TA cohort so that investigators could manage patients much more professionally and standardized and explore the better interventional strategy for a better outcome as well, with full use of blood and vascular tissues.

The purpose of this study is to learn about the experience of women with vasculitis who become pregnant. In particular, the study will consist of several online surveys to assess each woman's vasculitis severity and pregnancy-related experiences, and pregnancy outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to collect existing tissue specimens from subjects enrolled in Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium (VCRC) studies. Analysis of these tissue specimens and linked clinical data collected through VCRC studies may lead to the identification and development of a series of translational research projects. Results of these studies will provide vasculitis researchers with insight into the causes of these diseases and generate new ideas for diagnostic tests and therapies, and will be of great interest to the larger communities of researchers investigating vasculitis and other autoimmune, inflammatory, and vascular diseases.

Takayasu arteritis is a chronic vasculitis mainly involving the aorta and its main branches such as the brachiocephalic, carotid, subclavian, vertebral, and renal arteries, as well as the coronary and pulmonary arteries. Inflammation causes segments of the vessels to become narrowed, blocked, or even stretched, possibly resulting in aneurysms. The disease is very rare but most commonly occurs in young Asian women. However, there is a considerable lack of understanding of the disease mechanism of Takayasu arteritis. Initially, the disease remains clinically silent (or remains undetected) until the patients present with vascular occlusion. Additionally, many individuals with Takayasu arteritis, however, have no apparent symptoms despite disease activity. Therefore, biomarkers for diagnosis and monitor disease activity in individuals with Takayasu arteritis are needed. In this study, the investigators therefore to use different methods to identify new biomarkers for diagnosing or monitoring the disease activity in individuals with Takayasu arteritis. These biomarkers may provide valuable insights into the underlying biochemical processes and aid the understanding of the pathophysiology of this disease.