ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses several unrelated diseases which belong to the vast and rather kaleidoscopic of hypersensitivity and autoimmune diseases. Various febrile hypersensitivity vasculitis can be associated with connective tissue diseases, malignancies, and dysglobulinemia. Serum sickness is the model of all vasculitis, which are believed to be mediated by circulating immune complexes. Vasculitides are a major cause of Unexplained Fever (U.F.). Lymphomatoid Granulomatosis is characterized by inflammatory angiitis with histological similarities with Wegener’s granulomatosis as well as with a lymphopro-liferative disease. Patients may present with U.F. or with atypical lymphoma. Granulomas are present in extrinsic allergic alveolitis or hypersensitivity pneumonitis: a thorough occupational history is a key to the diagnosis. Temporal arteritis presents as a febrile intractable dry cough with weight loss, which evokes a lung cancer. A low-grade fever accompanies most bouts of M. Behcet’s disease. The fever is more prominent in case of thrombophlebitis and in case of severe systemic involvement.
