[Role of the ears, nose and throat specialist in the diagnosis and follow up of patients with primary vasculitidies].

First manifestations of vasculitis can appear on the head and neck, still few physicians are aware of these diseases, as they are unspecific and because other conditions like infections and allergies are more frequent. Among them, signs and symptoms like epistaxis, nasal obstruction, discharge, burning pain of sinonasal region, headache, sinus polyps and crusts, the latter found in people who live in highly polluted cities with low humidity, in patients with respiratory scleroma, atrophy, those receiving local radiotherapy, and due to other conditions. Under the crusts, many infectious agents, like Staphylococcus aureus may grow and, in addition, other signs related to active vasculitis may be found. The ENT specialist is one of the first physicians visited by patients with these signs and symptoms. Their recognition is important to readily diagnose these diseases. We have selected three vasculitidies for discussion in this paper: granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener), Churg-Strauss syndrome and relapsing polychondritis, since these three diseases present initial ENT problems with high frequency.