| Summary: | Introduction: Giant Cell arteritis can be difficult to diagnose clinically. In those cases, where there is no certainty, there is more reliance on a temporal artery biopsy and radiological imaging to confirm the diagnosis. The purpose of this article was to identify the standard of care in individuals with suspected Giant Cell Arteritis in a typical district general hospital and to offer a proposed pathway for treatment.
Methods: Darent Valley Hospital has been managing Giant Cell Arteritis for many years but there has always been a need for an outlined pathway to identify those at risk of cranial complications like visual loss to improve patient care. We evaluated the management of 70 individuals that had a temporal artery biopsy and followed their treatment journey. We extracted clinical specialist, emergency admission, operation theatre and histological data. We collected clinic follow up data over the following years to identify those that relapsed on treatment, stayed in remission or had complications. We propose a pathway to manage those individuals with Giant Cell arteritis in line with the new advances in treatment.
Results: Ten patients were identified that had a histologically positive biopsy. Reassuringly, most individuals with an obvious clinical diagnosis had high dose glucocorticoid treatment commenced before even being referred for a biopsy. Nine individuals had visual ischemia out of which five lost their vision.
Conclusion: The presentation of a pathway will help streamline best medical and surgical practice and ensure the availability of urgent specialist treatment and to identify those at risk of ischemic complications.
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