Takayasu arteritis is a rare inflammatory disease affecting large arteries including arteries supplying the brain. Typical manifestations are stenotic-occlusive vascular lesions leading to ischemization of the target organ. For determination of the diagnosis, results of vascular imaging examinations are decisive, with the characteristic pattern of arterial affection allowing differentiation from the far more frequent atherosclerosis. Pharmacotherapy is effective only in the acute phase; critical chronic lesions require invasive solutions. The authors present a case report of a 19-year old man with a more than a year-long history of generalized inflammatory disease in whom the arteries branching off the aortic arch were affected and who was diagnosed on the basis of sonographic examination of neck arteries. Current diagnostic and treatment possibilities for this disease are discussed.

        Key words: Takayasu arteritis, large artery vasculitis, atherosclerosis, noninvasive vascular imaging methods, cerebrovascular accident