The Digital Artery Design in Rheumatoid Arthritis—Further Observations

Abstract

The digital vascula-ture in 4 patients with rheumatoid arthritis was studied at autopsy by post-mortem brachial arteriography and histological examination. The angiographic appearances at different situations correspond with those of histological sections at the same sites. There is a close similarity between post-mortem radiological appearances and those of arteriograms carried out during life. Patients with seropositivie nodular rheumatoid disease are liable to show intimal thickening and thrombosis in the digital arteries. Clinical evidence of this may or may not be present during life. This obliterative endarteritis is not, however, invariable, even in the presence of long-standing and severe seropositive rheumatoid disease. The same simple intimal thickening was found in the arteries of the fingers in a patient who died from the effects of systemic poly-arteritis supervening upon rheumatoid disease, despite the presence of widespread necrotizing vasculitis elsewhere. The relation between these 2 types of vascular lesion remains unknown.