Visceral intestinal Buerger's disease

Abstract

Buerger's disease is a non-arteriosclerotic, segmental, progressive, inflammatory vaso-occlusive disease of unknown etiology. Buerger's disease occurs almost exclusively in susceptible young men who are habitual tobacco users; usually with onset of symptoms before the age of 40 years. Buerger's disease affects both arteries and veins of principally lower and upper limbs and, rarely, of the viscera. To date, only 16 confirmed cases of visceral-intestinal Buerger's disease have been reported in the English-language literature; and all 16 patients were men. We describe here, for the first time, two young women with intestinal Buerger's disease who died of complications of ischemic bowel disease.