The following symptoms and complaints may indicate eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA), formerly Churg-Strauss syndrome (CSS):
- Allergic symptomatology such as allergic asthma (in 70% of cases), allergic rhinitis (hay fever).
- Involvement internal organs, especially heart (in about 30% of cases; ANCA usually negative and high eosinophil counts, eosinophilic granulomatous myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), coronaritis (inflammation of the coronary arteries)).
- Involvement of the nervous system (mono-/polyneuropathy, CNS vasculitis).
- Volatile pulmonary infiltrates
- Briefly preceded by severe feeling of illness with fatigue, fever, night sweats, unwanted weight loss.
- Muscular complaints, unspecified
- Jumping arthralgias (joint pain)
- Thromboembolism (occlusion of pulmonary vessels by thrombi (blood clots)).
Renal involvement is rare.
The disease typically occurs with a tricyclic course:
- Prodromal stage (early phase of disease in which there are nonspecific symptoms; onset 2nd or 3rd decade of life:
- Eosinophil stage
- Involvement internal organs, especially heart (in about 30% of cases; ANCA (anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies) usually negative and high eosinophil counts (belong to leukocytes/white blood cells), eosinophil granulomatous myocarditis/heart muscle inflammation, coronaritis/coronary artery inflammation), lungs and gastrointestinal tract (gastrointestinal tract).
- Vasculitis stage (approximately 10 years after the onset of prodromal symptoms).
- Generalization of symptoms in the sense of systemic vasculitis (inflammatory rheumatic diseases characterized by a tendency to inflammation of the (mostly) arterial blood vessels)
- Briefly preceded by a strong feeling of illness with fatigue, fever, night sweats, unwanted weight loss.
- Infestation of the skin (subepidermal hemorrhagic nodules), lungs (hemoptysis) and gastrointestinal tract.
- Note: A poor prognosis exists with involvement of the of the heart, nervous system (mono-/polyneuropathy, CNS vasculitis), and kidneys.
- Generalization of symptoms in the sense of systemic vasculitis (inflammatory rheumatic diseases characterized by a tendency to inflammation of the (mostly) arterial blood vessels)