Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibodies-associated Vasculitis

of the blood vessels that are predominantly affected.This last division was defined in 1994 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America, as an attempt to systematically classify vasculitis in relation to the previously unsatisfactory and impractical nomenclature in that diagnostic area, and today it is considered widely accepted and established in the largest part of the scientific community. 1According to IntroductIonVasculitis is a clinical-pathological process characterized by inflammatory changes and necrosis of blood vessels.On its etiopathogenetic basis, there is an autoimmune group of vasculitis that can affect all types of blood vessels, regardless of their size and location.Inflammatory mechanisms in vasculitis are mediated by proinflammatory substances (inflammation mediators) cytokines, which arise in two ways-local formation or circulatory spread from distant parts of the body, and are a response to the action of many provoking factors on the defense cells of our organism.In the pathophysiological pattern of vasculitis, activated by the action of cytokines, the systems of cellular immunity, humoral immunity mediated by antibodies, and the complement cascade system participate.Vasculitis as a pathological entity can be divided in several ways-with regard to the initial site of pathophysiological action into primary and secondary, with regard to the scope of the affected organ systems into systemic and isolated, and considering the size