Impact
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Childhood-onset Takayasu arteritis (cTAK) is not a uniform disease but exhibits distinct age-specific clinical and vascular phenotypes across developmental stages, from infants to adolescents.
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These differences necessitate age-tailored diagnostic approaches and therapeutic strategies to improve outcomes and reduce treatment-related morbidity.
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The concept of “developmental vasculopathy” links vascular involvement patterns to maturational changes in the arterial wall, addressing critical diagnostic challenges in differentiating incomplete Kawasaki disease from cTAK.
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The progression toward age-stratified management patterns heralds a new era of personalized medicine in cTAK, with precision diagnostics and tailored interventions to improve outcomes for this serious childhood disease.
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K.S. wrote and revised the commentary’s first draft; all authors revised the article critically and approved the final version to be published.
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Saad, K., Hussain, S.A., Ahmad, A.R. et al. Advancing the understanding of age-specific phenotypes in childhood-onset takayasu arteritis. Pediatr Res (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-04622-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-04622-9
