[Giant-cell vasculitis (arteritis and phlebitis)].

Vasculitis was detected in 5 patients although not in the temporal artery but in vessels of other localizations: subcutaneous veins of the lower extremities (an adolescent of 17 and a man of 41), cardiac and renal arteries (a man of 32), gall bladder artery (a woman of 72), veins of the spermatic cord (a man of 28). Giant cells formed in granulomatous reaction, most frequently in the intima of the vessel or close to it in such nosological forms as endarteritis, periarteritis nodosa, obliterating thromboangiitis (Buerger's disease). A hypothesis is suggested concerning the etiological role in the development of giant cell vasculitis of chemical haptens (xenobiotics), protozoa, possibly bacteria and viruses.