Giant Cell Arteritis

Recent landmark study results have shown that interleukin-6 blockade may be superior to prolonged prednisone therapy in giant cell arteritis, according to a presenter at the 2020 Congress of Clinical Rheumatology-West.

Although no single sign or symptom alone is strong enough to confirm a diagnosis of giant cell arteritis, a collection of features, including limb claudication and temporal artery thickening, are most informative, according to findings published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Although many rheumatologists view Takayasu’s arteritis as “basically the same disease” as giant cell arteritis, tocilizumab is more effective in the latter than the former, according to a presenter at the 2020 Congress of Clinical Rheumatology-East.

An 83-year-old man presented to the New England Eye Center with a 2-week history of decreased vision in both eyes. He felt like letters were “clumping together,” making it difficult to read. He also complained that the inferior half of his vision in the right eye was foggy. He denied any new headaches, jaw claudication, transient visual obscurations, scalp tenderness, recent weight loss or fatigue. He was experiencing new gait instability and poor coordination.

High cumulative use of oral glucocorticoids was associated with excess incidence of hypertension, according to research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Learning Objectives:

Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) are a group of clinically heterogeneous disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, giant cell arteritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and axial spondyloarthritis, that share a similar immunopathology. Recognizing the underlying immunopathological mechanisms of these disorders is essential for understanding how current and emerging therapies exert their effects. In this CME activity, recorded during the Association of Women in Rheumatology National Conference, experts in the field examine common signaling pathways in IMIDs, evaluate recent clinical evidence for available and emerging immune-based therapies that target these pathways, assess the utilization of biomarkers for the identification of patients with early inflammatory disease, and evaluate the mechanisms of cancer immunotherapies as they relate to both an antitumor response and the potential for autoimmunity.

Among patients with Takayasu’s and giant cell arteritis, certain symptoms, such as carotidynia, are more closely associated with vascular inflammation based on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography, or FDG-PET, while claudication and other symptoms are more linked to vascular damaged based on magnetic resonance angiography, according to data published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

ATLANTA — Approximately 47% of patients in clinical remission after receiving 1 year of weekly tocilizumab for giant cell arteritis maintained their treatment-free remission for an additional 2 years, according to a speaker at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting.

ATLANTA — Increased use of glucocorticoid-sparing agents is one of the key recommendations in a guideline document that covers seven vasculitis diseases, according to a speaker at ACR/ARP 2019.