RT Journal
A1 Hoffman GS
T1 THerapeutic interventions for systemic vasculitis
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2010
FD December 1
VO 304
IS 21
SP 2413
OP 2414
DO 10.1001/jama.2010.1676
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2010.1676
AB 
Nonetheless, 50 years of earlier descriptive reports had revealed that certain forms of vasculitis were uniformly fatal without therapy. Consequently, studies with untreated controls were considered unethical. Despite these shortcomings, important information emerged from the pre-1990 era. For instance, several studies demonstrated that without treatment, diseases such as Wegener granulomatosis (WG)1 and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA)2 were often fatal within weeks to months. These sobering outcomes were especially common among patients who presented with pulmonary-renal syndromes, gastrointestinal ischemia, or central nervous system involvement. In addition, while glucocorticosteroid discovery and clinical application was a major breakthrough for many illnesses, it was not effective for the most severe types of systemic vasculitis. Many patients with critical organ involvement still died within months.