SARCOIDOSIS AS THE INITIAL MANIFESTATION OF TAKAYASU ARTERITIS

Takayasu's arteritis is a chronic inflammatory arteriopathy of unknown cause. The pulseless phase of Takayasu's arteritis is preceded by a p eriod of ''prepulseless disease'' when the patients suffer from system atic symptoms without obvious evidence of obstruction of larger arteri es. Herein we report a unique case of Takayasu's arteritis presenting as sarcoidosis manifested by restrictive lung disease, hilar adenopath y and non-caseating granulomas of the skin. We are aware of only one r eport in which non-caseating skin granulomas were evident at the prepu lseless phase of Takayasu's arteritis. However, in our patient the cli nical picture was typical of sarcoidosis. Increased awareness of this possibility will lead to more frequent skin biopsies in patients with Takayasu's arteritis and nodular skin lesions, which may increase the number of reported cases with this combination.