Clinical Analysis Of Giant Cell Arteritis In 16 Cases

Objective This work studied the clinical situation of giant cell arteritis (GCA) and Takayasu's (Brachiocephalic artery , TA-BCA) , in order to improve the acknowledge of the two large-Medium vessels diseases.Methods From March 2001 to December 2006 ,a total of 16 GCA patients and 32 TA-BCA patients (16 to 32) were admitted to the Department of Rheumatology in Shandong Provincial Hospital, All these cases were identical in the aspect of being in hospital .Analyze the clinical situation , laboratory examination ,imaging appearance and the therapeutic reaction of hormonal therapy between these two groups.Results In the group of GCA patients ,there were 12 male patients (75 %), and there were only 8 male patient in the group of TA-BCA patients (25%). The average age of GCA patients were older than that of TA-BCA. The symptoms of angiostegnosis or vessel obstruct situated in aortic arch onset such as asphygmia, vascular murmur, limbs intermission dyskinesia in the group of TA-BCApatients were higher than that of patients in the group of GCA patients, However the symptoms of temporal artery abnormality such as pulsatile headache and temporal artery pulsation abnormality in the group of GCA patients wre higher than that of patients in the group of TA-BCA .The symptoms of fever and nervous system abnormality have not obvious difference between these two groups. The advancement of erythrocyte sedimentation rate(ESR), C-raction protine(CRP) and serum ferritin (SF)was siginificantly different. All of GCA patients were operated temporal artery biopsy, there were 10 patients with reactive pathological changes, 4 patients with chronic pathological changes, and 2 patients with negative biopsy. The hormonal therapy reaction in GCA patients was much better than that of the patients with TA-BCA.Conclusions This study found that the male patients with GCA are dominant in these two group and the age of these patients are much olderly , and the symptoms of angiostegnosis or vessel obstruct situated in the aortic arch onset are much less. In sometime, inflammatory cell cannot be found in temporal artery biopsy. The hormonal therapy in these patients performs much better than what it does in the patients with Takayasu's (Brachiocephalic artery).