Radiologic Approach for Pulmonary Vasculitis

Abstract

Vasculitis is a systemic disease, characterized by inflammation of the vascular wall. Although rare, it is sometimes life-threatening due to diffuse pulmonary hemorrhage or acute glomerulonephritis. Besides primary vasculitis, whose cause is unknown, numerous conditions such as autoimmune diseases, drugs, infections, and tumors can cause secondary vasculitis. Vasculitis displays various non-specific symptoms, signs, and laboratory findings; hence, diagnosis of the disease requires integration of various results including clinical features, imaging findings, autoantibody tests, and pathological findings. In this review, we have discussed the clinical, radiologic, and pathological features of vasculitis. Further, we elaborated the imaging findings and differential diagnosis of typical vasculitis that frequently involves the lung and introduced a new international classification of vasculitis, the Diagnostic and Classification Criteria in Vasculitis.

Keywords

• vasculitis
• antibodies
• antineutrophil cytoplasmic
• computed tomography
• x-ray