Vasculitis in the very elderly

Whatever may be their clinical presentation, vasculitis syndromes (VS) have a bad prognosis in the very elderly.

The aim of this work was to study VS particularities in very old people. Most published studies on VS in elderly people concern patients older than 60 years; studies concerning very old patients are unusual.

We studied retrospectively subjects older than 75 years with a diagnosis of VS from the Departments of Geriatrics and Internal Medicine at Dijon University Hospital. These subjects were hospitalized between January 1995 and December 1999. Data were obtained from the medical files of these patients. Several aspects were considered: type of VS, associated diseases, treatment, complications, and outcome.

Twelve patients, 5 men and 7 women aged 79-91 (mean age 82.3) years, were included. Primary VS was observed in half of the patients and secondary VS in the others. The initial clinical presentation was often polymorphous and unspecific; 8 of the patients died, 2 developed progressive severe functional impairment, 1 was stabilized under therapy, and 1 patient with VS secondary to infection recovered. Most patients either died quickly or progressively deteriorated from infections, malnutrition, or functional impairment.

The health of the majority of patients (83%) deteriorated dramatically, leading to death or severe functional impairment.