The life of Costantino Vitagliano changed after the discovery of an illness: as the first tronista of 'Men and women', and today an entrepreneur, on 'Verissimo', on Canale 5. In dealing with a rare “autoimmune” pathology, However, Vitagliano did not go into detail because there is still no certainty about the diagnosis. “Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (in acronym Imid) are a set of many pathological conditions, which individually can affect different tissues and organs, sometimes showing a particular specificity in the target involved, other times instead revealing a multiplicity of targets apparently unrelated to each other – immunologist Mauro Minelli explains to Adnkronos Salute, responsible for the South of the Italian Foundation for Personalized Medicine – Considering this great heterogeneity which, despite having its underlying origin in a primary dysfunction of the immune system, can affect the most diverse areas of the body, and referring to the limited clinical information that has so far leaked in relation to the case of Costantino Vitagliano which appears to have originally manifested itself with the rupture of a tendon without significant trauma, the most plausible hypotheses could focus on an autoimmune disease of the connective tissue“.
“The latter is the fundamental substrate that gives strength and resistance to the joints, tendons, ligaments and blood vessels. The involvement of the blood vessels can, in various circumstances, generate even more complex pathological pictures in which the 'inflammation, which may originally be limited to small segments of the circulatory district, extending more or less widely throughout the body, can lead to a series of complications – specifies the immunologist – In these cases we speak of 'vasculitis', pathological condition that can affect small blood vessels as in the case of Wegener's granulomatosis or Churg Strauss syndrome; medium-sized blood vessels, which affect the arteries (polyarteritis nodosa, Kawasaki disease); or large, conditions in which the inflammation affects, for example, the aorta and its main branches (Takayasu's disease)”.
According to the immunologist, “the disorders that can characterize the clinical picture of vasculitis change greatly depending on the district in which the vascular inflammation is predominantly localized, and their intensity changes depending on the extent of the inflammatory picture. The most frequent symptoms are generally represented by fever, tiredness, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, inflammatory neuropathies, headache, tinnitus, vision defects, weight loss. In the initial phase these are very generic symptoms, actually present in various diseases and which, among other things, not all patients experience. It follows that, at the moment of discovery, when the most important symptoms appear, the immune-induced inflammation has already subtly damaged the artery for years without important warning signs.”
In conclusion, “certainly steps will be taken to correctly frame the case of the former tronista also because, beyond what can be objectively found, the combined association of clinical, serological, histological and angiographic parameters can offer generally conclusive evidence. What will be important to investigate – he concludes – however, it is the generating cause of immune dysregulation in order to avoid, where possible, new relapses which, due to the persistence of immune-mediated inflammation, could reignite the pathological picture despite the drugs”.
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