Temporal arteritis is a chronic vascular disease of unknown origin occurring in the elderly, characterized by granulomatous inflammation in the wall of medium-size and large arteries (1).
Although any large artery may be affected, it is the branches of the carotid artery that result in the majority of the symptoms and signs. The condition primarily affects the aorta and its extracranial branches (2).
There is a significant clinical overlap with polymyalgia rheumatica.
The American College of Rheumatology considers that 3 of the 5 developed diagnostic criteria must be met to support diagnosis of temporal arteritis.
Criterion | Definition |
Patient age older than 50 years at disease onset | Development of symptoms or findings beginning when a patient is older than 50 years |
New headache | New onset or new type of localized pain in the head |
Temporal artery abnormality | Temporal artery tenderness on palpation or decreased temporal artery pulse, unrelated to arteriosclerosis of the cervical arteries |
Elevated ESR | ESR greater than 50 mm per hour by the Westegren method |
Abnormal biopsy | Biopsy specimen with artery showing vasculitis characterized by a pre-dominance of mononuclear cell infiltration or granulomatous inflammation, usually with multinucleated giant cells |
Suspect giant cell arteritis if the person is aged 50 years or older with at least one of (4):
Reference:
Add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation, such as a web address or phone number. This information will always be displayed when you visit this page