{"title":"Risk factors associated with disease relapse in healing/healed arterial injury and biopsy-proven giant cell arteritis.","authors":"Wei Sim, Jack Mouhanna, Danah Albreiki","doi":"10.1016/j.jcjo.2025.03.008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>To compare characteristics of relapses in patients with biopsy-proven giant cell arteritis (GCA) and healing/healed (HH) arterial injury on temporal artery biopsy (TAB).</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Single-centre, retrospective cohort study.</p><p><strong>Participants: </strong>One hundred thirty-five consecutive patients with GCA-positive or HH arterial injury on TAB and minimum 12-month follow-up from January 2009 to December 2018.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Clinical characteristics and serological markers were evaluated for their potential as risk factors for symptomatic or biochemical relapses.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Relapse rates were 16.9% and 25.7% in the HH and GCA-positive groups, respectively (p = 0.21). Median length of follow-up was 34.8 months in the HH group and 36.6 months in the GCA-positive group. No statistically significant difference between groups with respect to time to relapse, steroid doses at relapse, and presence of symptoms and elevated biomarkers at relapse. In GCA-positive patients, aortitis was associated with relapse (p = 0.050) and with earlier relapse rates (p = 0.007). Aortitis (HR 7.96; p = 0.007) and jaw claudication (HR 5.08; p = 0.019) were found to be independent risk factors for relapse. In HH arterial injury patients, aortitis and aortic aneurysm were associated with earlier relapses (p = 0.044 and p = 0.047, respectively) and were associated with disease relapses on univariable analysis (p = 0.044 and p = 0.047, respectively) but not on multivariable analysis.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The presence of large-vessel vasculitis is associated with disease relapse in both HH and GCA-positive biopsy patients. Similar relapse characteristics between both HH and biopsy-proven patients may suggest that clinicians manage these patients similarly in context of clinical history rather than modify management purely based on pathology findings.</p>","PeriodicalId":9606,"journal":{"name":"Canadian journal of ophthalmology. Journal canadien d'ophtalmologie","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian journal of ophthalmology. Journal canadien d'ophtalmologie","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjo.2025.03.008","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"OPHTHALMOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objective: To compare characteristics of relapses in patients with biopsy-proven giant cell arteritis (GCA) and healing/healed (HH) arterial injury on temporal artery biopsy (TAB).
Participants: One hundred thirty-five consecutive patients with GCA-positive or HH arterial injury on TAB and minimum 12-month follow-up from January 2009 to December 2018.
Methods: Clinical characteristics and serological markers were evaluated for their potential as risk factors for symptomatic or biochemical relapses.
Results: Relapse rates were 16.9% and 25.7% in the HH and GCA-positive groups, respectively (p = 0.21). Median length of follow-up was 34.8 months in the HH group and 36.6 months in the GCA-positive group. No statistically significant difference between groups with respect to time to relapse, steroid doses at relapse, and presence of symptoms and elevated biomarkers at relapse. In GCA-positive patients, aortitis was associated with relapse (p = 0.050) and with earlier relapse rates (p = 0.007). Aortitis (HR 7.96; p = 0.007) and jaw claudication (HR 5.08; p = 0.019) were found to be independent risk factors for relapse. In HH arterial injury patients, aortitis and aortic aneurysm were associated with earlier relapses (p = 0.044 and p = 0.047, respectively) and were associated with disease relapses on univariable analysis (p = 0.044 and p = 0.047, respectively) but not on multivariable analysis.
Conclusions: The presence of large-vessel vasculitis is associated with disease relapse in both HH and GCA-positive biopsy patients. Similar relapse characteristics between both HH and biopsy-proven patients may suggest that clinicians manage these patients similarly in context of clinical history rather than modify management purely based on pathology findings.
期刊介绍:
Official journal of the Canadian Ophthalmological Society.
The Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology (CJO) is the official journal of the Canadian Ophthalmological Society and is committed to timely publication of original, peer-reviewed ophthalmology and vision science articles.