Polyarteritis nodosa

Polyarteritis nodosa is a systemic necrotizing vasculitis that primarily inflames medium-sized arteries, causing ischemia, aneurysms, and organ damage. It does not cause glomerulonephritis or pulmonary capillaritis.

Vasculitis: Vasculitis is inflammation of blood-vessel walls that can narrow, weaken, or destroy them. Polyarteritis nodosa is one defined form of systemic vasculitis.
Angiography: Angiography uses imaging of blood vessels to identify narrowing, occlusion, or abnormal dilation. It can reveal stenoses and microaneurysms in affected arteries.
Mononeuritis multiplex: Mononeuritis multiplex is damage to multiple separate peripheral nerves, often causing asymmetric weakness or sensory loss. Ischemic injury to the nerves’ supplying arteries can produce this pattern.
Microscopic polyangiitis: Microscopic polyangiitis is a necrotizing small-vessel vasculitis that commonly affects capillaries, venules, and arterioles. Unlike polyarteritis nodosa, it can cause glomerulonephritis and pulmonary capillaritis.
Adolf Kussmaul: Adolf Kussmaul was a German physician known for contributions to clinical medicine in the nineteenth century. He and Rudolf Maier published the first detailed description of the disease in 1866.
Medium-sized arteries: Medium-sized arteries distribute blood to organs and tissues beyond the major elastic arteries. These vessels are the principal targets of the disease.
Muscle biopsy: Muscle biopsy removes a small tissue sample for microscopic examination. Sampling symptomatic muscle can detect vasculitis when affected arteries are present.
Livedo reticularis: Livedo reticularis is a netlike, reddish-blue skin discoloration caused by altered blood flow near the skin. Cutaneous arterial involvement can produce this mottled pattern.
Granulomatosis with polyangiitis: Granulomatosis with polyangiitis is a necrotizing vasculitis associated with granulomatous inflammation of the respiratory tract and small vessels. Its respiratory tract disease and small-vessel injury contrast with the usual pattern here.
Rudolf Maier: Rudolf Maier was a German pathologist and physician active in the nineteenth century. His collaboration with Kussmaul established the disease’s early clinical and pathological description.

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Takayasu arteritisCompared with: Its medium-vessel pattern distinguishes it from this aorta-centered large-vessel disease.