What are the key clinical features to consider when diagnosing Takayasu arteritis in a young adult?

Key clinical features to consider when diagnosing Takayasu arteritis in a young adult include:

• Constitutional symptoms: Patients often present with systemic features such as fever, malaise, weight loss, and fatigue, reflecting the inflammatory nature of the disease ¹ (Somashekar and Leung, 2023).
• Vascular symptoms and signs: These include limb claudication (especially upper limbs), diminished or absent peripheral pulses, blood pressure discrepancies between arms, and bruits over large arteries such as carotid or subclavian arteries ¹ (Bhandari et al., 2023).
• Hypertension: Secondary hypertension is common due to renal artery involvement or aortic coarctation ¹ (Millan et al., 2022).
• Neurological symptoms: Dizziness, syncope, or visual disturbances may occur due to carotid or vertebral artery involvement ¹ (Somashekar and Leung, 2023).
• Arterial inflammation signs: Tenderness or pain over affected arteries, and in some cases, features of ischemia such as ulcers or gangrene in severe disease ¹ (Bhandari et al., 2023).
• Laboratory findings: Elevated inflammatory markers such as ESR and CRP support the diagnosis but are nonspecific ¹ (Somashekar and Leung, 2023).

In summary, the diagnosis in a young adult relies on recognizing a combination of systemic inflammatory symptoms and characteristic large-vessel ischemic signs, supported by laboratory and imaging findings ¹ (Millan et al., 2022; Somashekar and Leung, 2023; Bhandari et al., 2023).