• Takayasu arteritis

Takayasu arteritis is a chronic inflammatory vasculitis that occurs primarily in young women. It occurs world wide, with greatest prevalence in Asian people. It mainly affects the aorta and its major branches.¹ The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have broadly defined idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia as a reproducible depletion of CD4 lymphocytes below 0.3×10⁹/l in the absence of HIV infection or other known causes of immunodeficiency.² We report a case of Takayasu arteritis with low CD4+ T lymphopenia without evidence of HIV infection in a boy from Turkey.

A 9 year old boy was admitted with a history of dyspnoea, malaise, and cough for four months. Before admission the patient had been prescribed treatment for pneumonia. He had no history of recurrent infection until four months before his admission. There was no parental consanguinity or any immunocompromised person in his family. Physical examination showed a temperature of 36°C, pulse rate of 140 beats/min, respiratory rate of 50/min, and a blood …