Takayasu vasculitis cohort
Establishment of The Norwegian Takayasu vasculitis study network/national cohort. Takayasu vasculitis (TAK) affects aorta and primary branches and less often coronary and pulmonary arteries.
To date there is a lack of good prognostic markers to predict disease course which could ease the clinicans to choose appropriate treatment regime from the time of diagnosis.
We are currently studying if PET-CT finding at the time of diagnosis can predict disease course and vascular damage accumulation. We have previously shown that Norwegian TAK patients have an increased mortality rate usually second to vascular incidents. We have an ongoing project to identify risk factors for subsequent cardio and cerebrovascular incidents in a population TAK cohort.