Editorial: Wegener's Granulomatosis: More than Meets the Eye

摘要

Not so long ago I received a call from a distraught rheu-1 N matologist from a neighboring state about a patient with Wegener's granulomatosis who had just been diagnosed with retinal vasculitis by an ophthalmologist. Initially this patient had presented with orbital inflammatory disease, a known association with Wegener's, that is well reviewed by Pakrou and colleagues in this issue of Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism. Despite the appropriate use of cyclophosphamide, 1 eye had been enucleated due to the orbital inflammation. The ANCA titer, however, had become negative and the systemic disease was seemingly under excellent control with a low dose of daily, oral cyclophosphamide. Why then this sudden turn of events in the 1 remaining eye? Was the Wegener's reactivating despite the control of the vasculitis elsewhere in the body?