The review of papers concerning systemic vasculitis (SV) was done from the Medline database, covering the period from 1991 till 1995. 1,543 abstracts were presented here. Only 473 from them could be reckon among primary SV nomenclature accepted in Chapel Hill consensus conference. No blind methods were found at all; randomised controlled trials, comparative studies or prospective experience were presented in 15 papers only. Perhaps it is due to some reasons: first, SV according to classification criteria are rather rare disorders and only few cases per year could be met by one explorer; second, these illnesses have severe course and frequently end fatally, so applying clinical trials is often controversial to clinical situation; third, the classification of SV is constantly changing and it makes difficulties to entitle one or another form of SV. Obviously, more information could be taken from ongoing trials by hand searching where they are described purposive with references presented. In meantime, the extensive clinical trials are performed in Europe and are called "EC - Systemic Vasculitis Clinical Trials". 12 European countries and one EE country are involved in these randomised controlled studies. SV strongly associated with ANCA are at the centre of interest. Six basic and two substitutional projects were developed with coordination of Prof. N. Rasmussen from Denmark. The first tentative results are already published in few papers. The final results will be announced in the end of 1997.