Atypical manifestation of Takayasu’s disease masquerading as tuberculosis in an adolescent male

Abstract

Introduction: Takayasu's disease is a chronic idiopathic vasculitis that mainly affects the aorta and/or its main branches. It affects young adult women most commonly. Although pulmonary artery involvement in Takayasu's disease is well documented, most patients remain asymptomatic and the pulmonary manifestations are frequently overshadowed by systemic involvement. The literature is suggestive that there is pulmonary involvement in Takayasu's disease, which masquerades as pulmonary embolism, but only a few reports discuss patients having symptoms as the initial manifestation that are due to pulmonary infarction. We describe the case of young adolescent male with Takayasu's disease who presented with pulmonary infarction, but who was misdiagnosed initially as having pulmonary Koch's bacillus infection.