CASE REPORT article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders : Autoimmune Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1593770
This article is part of the Research TopicInsights into the Diagnosis, Pathogenesis and Management of Takayasu ArteritisView all articles
Case Report: Can Early Full-Course Tocilizumab Therapy Reverse Vascular Stenosis in Takayasu Arteritis?
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Rheumatology Nephrology, Baiyun Hospital The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine,, guangzhou, China
- 2First Clinical Medical College, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
- 3Suining County People's Hospital, Suining, China
- 4Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
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Takayasu arteritis (TAK) is an idiopathic systemic disease characterized by granulomatous inflammation of the aorta and its branches. TAK can cause multiple vascular injuries throughout the body, mainly arterial stenosis and aneurysms. In severe cases, it can even lead to fatal hemorrhage, infarction and other serious complications, posing a serious threat to the patient's life and health. Few studies have shown that drug treatment can improve or reverse its vascular stenosis. This study describes a 19-year-old woman diagnosed with TAK who had multiple vascular stenosis at the time of the disease. In an early and timely manner as well as up to seven years after a full course of tolizumab, her vascular wall thickening improved and previously stenotic vessels were recanalized. We believe that early use of tocilizumab in patients with TAK can improve vascular lesions. To our knowledge, this study is the first case to find complete recanalization of stenotic vessels after the use of tocilizumab, and the pre- and post-test and examination data are complete. In addition, we summarized the cases of improvement of vascular lesions after tocilizumab treatment of TAK, and preliminarily compared the efficacy and safety of tocilizumab and TNFi in TAK. We speculate that early and adequate use of tocilizumab could reverse early inflammatory vessel wall thickening and stenosis, and we found, through further literature review, that its efficacy was comparable to that of TNF inhibitors
Keywords: Takayasu Arteritis, tocilizumab, TNFi, vascular stenosis and recanalization, Cure
Received: 14 Mar 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Liu, Xiao, Zhao, Chen and Xie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Guangxing Chen, Department of Rheumatology Nephrology, Baiyun Hospital The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine,, guangzhou, China
Yanli Xie, Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.