Thromboangiitis Obliterans: Changing Demographics for a Preventable Disease

Abstract

Thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO), otherwise known as Buerger's Disease, is a rare, small-vessel vasculitis strongly associated with cigarette smoking, that when left untreated can cause vessel destruction and necrosis of the distal extremities leading to amputation. The patient being presented is a 46-year-old Caucasian female who has been smoking since the age of fifteen and shows characteristics of TAO on angiography. The uniqueness of this case lies in the epidemiology; the typical TAO patient is a 20 to 40-year-old Asian male. However, over the last few decades, the typical patient population for TAO has been shifting. Our patient represents this changing demographics of TAO patients that include a greater percentage of women, non-Asian ethnicities, and the elderly. This patient represents an opportunity to follow the disease progression and learn more about the pathophysiology of TAO as it pertains to its shifting demographics.

Herbal therapy treatment in thromboangiitis obliterans: a retrospective clinical study

“…Von Winiwarter provided the first description of a patient with TAO in 1879. TAO takes its name from a paper presented in 1908 at a meeting of the Association of American Physicians by Leo Buerger (1,2). At that meeting, he discussed a condition that the disease affected young adults and was characterized by thrombotic vascular occlusions of the lower limbs.…”