[Allergic granulomatosis and angiitis (Churg-Strauss syndrome) or bronchial asthma with periarteritis nodosa (author's transl)].

The coexistence of hypereosinophilic asthma and periarteritis nodosa, though rare, has been recognised for a long time (Wilson and Alexander, 1945). Based on clinical (asthma, hypereosinophilia) and histological (extravascular granulomas) criteria, Churg and Strauss, in 1951, described a single entity which they considered to be distinct from PAN, and which they called allergic and granulomatous angiitis. The authors describe three such cases, compare their findings with those in the published literature, and discuss the classification of Churg and Strauss' syndrome in relation to PAN. Apart from the asthma and hypereosinophilia, symptomatology is comparable with that of PAN, and histological examination demonstrates very similar vascular lesions in both affections. Extravascular granulomas do not appear to be truly specific. It would seem that there is a lack of essential features that could separate PAN from Churg and Strauss' syndrome, the preexistence of an asthmatic state perhaps simply modifying the PAN disorder in certain particular ways.