Systemic vasculitis: still a long and winding road.

摘要

The systemic vasculitides continue to be challenging diseases. Over the past recent years we have learnt that no progress can be made in the management of these conditions without multicenter collaboration. Increasingly consolidated and expanding international collaborative networks have generated substantial achievements and have established a solid basis for future development. Progress has been made in the categorization of vasculitis according to disease severity, in creating activity and damage indexes, and in conducting clinical trials in order to improve therapeutic options; however, we are currently facing a mixture of success and failure.