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Airway Involvement in Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis

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Diseases of the Central Airways

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Abstract

The evaluation and diagnosis of a patient with suspected tracheobronchial granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), formerly called Wegener’s granulomatosis, requires a combination of clinical assessment, serologic testing, sinus and chest imaging, pulmonary function tests, bronchoscopy, and tissue biopsy. The diagnosis is established when serologic and histopathologic evidence of vasculitis and granulomatous inflammation is present in a patient with a compatible clinical presentation. In contrast to surgical lung biopsy, bronchoscopic tissue sampling of tracheobronchial luminal abnormalities only reveals histologic features of GPA in a minority of cases. The general principles of medical therapy for GPA also apply to patients who have tracheobronchial involvement. For those patients who remain symptomatic despite appropriate medical management, endoscopic management is an option.

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Sethi, S., Thiruchelvam, N., Highland, K.B. (2016). Airway Involvement in Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis. In: Mehta, A., Jain, P., Gildea, T. (eds) Diseases of the Central Airways. Respiratory Medicine. Humana Press, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29830-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29830-6_4

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