Pulmonary manifestations of temporal arteritis.

Temporal arteritis is a well-recognized multi-systemic disease. Pulmonary manifestations, however, are extremely rare. In two patients with biopsy-proven temporal arteritis, lung involvement was observed. One patient presented with multinodular pulmonary lesions, while the second had a diffuse interstitial pattern. Both patients responded well to corticosteroid treatment. In a review of the literature, only four additional cases associating lung involvement with temporal arteritis were found. The possibility of primary pulmonary vasculitis should be considered in elderly patients with temporal arteritis...

An allergic disease may develop in any organ or system. The respective etiological factors include foreign proteins, infectious agents such as various microbes, viruses, moulds, parasites, chemical compounds often in the form of drugs usually designated as haptens, polysaccharides, benign and malignant neoplasms. Of the factors operating in the causal pathogenesis of such diseases the most important one is an exaggerated formation of antibodies, which appears to be uncontrolled and occurring irrespective of the demands of the organism...