Type:
Educational Exhibit
Keywords:
Abdomen, Gastrointestinal tract, CT, Diagnostic procedure, Inflammation, Education and training
Authors:
M. J. Moreno; 08036, Barcelona/ES
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-1225
Background
Vasculitis is an inflammation of the blood vessel walls that can be primary (idiopathic or causal mechanism poorly understood) or secondary to another underlying process (infections,
drugs,
connective tissue diseases).They are classified in different ways,
being the size of the vessel one of the most commonly used; vasculitis of large vessels (aorta and its major branches),
medium vessel vasculitis (visceral arteries and their branches) and small vessel vasculitis (arterioles,
venules and capillaries).
Besides,
they may be classified according to the presence of certain antibodies and for the involvement of different organs (Fig1).
The evidenced pathological changes can be diffuse or local depending on the vessel affected.
Although the digestive tract is often affected,
other territories as kidney or liver may also be compromised.
Sometimes we can detect on CT the vessel wall thickening, pseudoaneurysms,
or inflammatory changes in the surrounding fat that will guide us to the vasculitis diagnosis.
There are other cases where the findings would be complications of vascular occlusion and inflammation such as intestinal submucosal edema,
mesenteric ischemia,
bleeding,
intestinal perforation,
ischemic areas and renal infarcts.