Clinical assessment in Takayasu's arteritis: major challenges and controversies.

Takayasu's arteritis (TAK) is a rare, chronic, large-vessel vasculitis (LVV) that predominantly affects aorta, its major branches and the pulmonary arteries. Recent controversial issues in the diagnosis, disease assessment and prognosis in TAK are discussed in this review. In recent years, conventional angiography, the standard method for the initial diagnosis, seems to have been replaced by the new imaging modalities, such as MRI and...