Abstract
A 76-year-old woman presented in November 2005 with numbness in the hands and lower limbs, reduced dorsiflexion of the right thumb, myalgia, and a digital necrotic ulcer.The patient was suspected to have systemic vasculitis (polyarteritis nodosa) and administered prednisolone (50 mg/day) and lipoprostaglandin E1.
On November 27, 2006, the patient had headache and fever. She was admitted on December 4 because of deterioration of the disease and given increasing doses of prednisolone to 45 mg/day. On December 14, the patient claimed right lower abdominal pain. Abdominal CT disclosed an aneurysm of the right iliac artery and retention of highly concentrated fluids, suspected to be bloody ascites in the pelvic cavity, which led to a diagnosis of ruptured aneurysm of the right iliac artery. A percutaneous arterial embolization for the ruptured iliac artery aneurysm was performed, which successfully obliterated the blood flow of the right iliac artery. The postoperative course was uneventful, and the patient was discharged on December 28.
