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Abri Aghdam K, Soltan Sanjari M, Manafi N, Khorramdel S, Amirpooya Alemzadeh S, Ali Akbar Navahi R. Temporal Artery Biopsy for Diagnosing Giant Cell Arteritis: A Ten-year Review. JOVR [Internet]. 2020Apr.6 [cited 2024Apr.25];15(2):201–209. Available from: https://knepublishing.com/index.php/JOVR/article/view/6738

https://doi.org/10.18502/jovr.v15i2.6738

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  • Kaveh Abri Aghdam

    Kaveh Abri Aghdam

    Eye Research Center, The Five Senses Institute, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  • Mostafa Soltan Sanjari

    Mostafa Soltan Sanjari

    Eye Research Center, The Five Senses Institute, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  • Navid Manafi

    Navid Manafi

    Eye Research Center, The Five Senses Institute, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4610-402X
  • Shabnam Khorramdel

    Shabnam Khorramdel

    Eye Research Center, The Five Senses Institute, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  • Sayyed Amirpooya Alemzadeh

    Sayyed Amirpooya Alemzadeh

    Eye Research Center, The Five Senses Institute, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  • Roshanak Ali Akbar Navahi

    Roshanak Ali Akbar Navahi

    Eye Research Center, The Five Senses Institute, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Published Date

  • Apr 6, 2020
This journal is publishing all the articles under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0.

Temporal Artery Biopsy for Diagnosing Giant Cell Arteritis: A Ten-year Review

Journal of Ophthalmic and Vision Research (JOVR) / April–June 2020, Volume 15, Issue 2 / Pages 201–209

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the use of temporal artery biopsy (TAB) in diagnosing giant cell arteritis (GCA) and to evaluate patients’ clinical and laboratory characteristics.


Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of patients with suspected GCA who underwent TAB and had complete workup in a tertiary center in Iran between 2008 and 2017. The 2016 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) revised criteria for early diagnosis of GCA were used for each patient for inclusion in this study.


Results: The mean age of the 114 patients in this study was 65.54 ± 10.17 years. The mean overall score according to the 2016 ACR revised criteria was 4.17 ± 1.39, with 5.82 ± 1.28 for positive biopsies and 3.88 ± 1.19 for negative biopsies (p <0.001). Seventeen patients (14.9%) had a positive biopsy. Although the mean post-fixation specimen length in the biopsy-positive group (18.35 ± 6.9 mm) was longer than that in the biopsy-negative group (15.62 ± 8.4 mm), the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.21). There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of sex, serum hemoglobin, platelet count, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. There were statistically significant differences between the biopsy-negative and biopsy-positive groups with respect to patients’ age and C-reactive protein level (P < 001 and P = 0.012, respectively).


Conclusion: The majority of TABs were negative. Reducing the number of redundant biopsies is necessary to decrease workload and use of medical services. We suggest that the diagnosis of GCA should be dependent on clinical suspicion.

Keywords:

Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy, Giant Cell Arteritis, Temporal Arteritis, Temporal Artery Biopsy

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