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What is GCA?

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GCA is an autoimmune vasculitis condition affecting individuals over age 50 years that causes inflammation of large sized blood vessels and their branches. It typically involves aorta (a large blood vessel that originates from heart), its branches and most commonly temporal arteries that are located at the temples causing temporal pain or headaches.  If left untreated, the disease can cause permanent blindness or a stroke. 

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What are the symptoms?

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Symptoms include, 

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• Temporal pain or headache

• Vision changes or double vision

• Jaw pain or tiredness while chewing

• Fever, night sweats, lack of appetite, fatigue and abnormal weight loss

• Pain and stiffness in and around shoulders, neck, hips, lower back, pelvis and thighs

• Other rare features: scalp tingling, tongue tingling, unexplained cough, arm or leg pain after a period of use (as if it is running out of blood supply)

• Unusual, subtle or atypical features are not uncommon with this disease, which can delay making a diagnosis

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How is it diagnosed?

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Diagnosis is made with thorough clinical evaluation (history and physical), certain lab tests (such as high inflammation markers) and sometimes temporal artery biopsy. Certain imaging techniques can be helpful as well. Sometimes, diagnosis is made solely based on clinical findings in the absence of any definitive positive test results (such as biopsy). 

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How is it treated?

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Urgent treatment is required to be started (sometimes even before a diagnosis can be confirmed by testing) to prevent serious complications such as blindness. 

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Treatment includes high dose steroids and other steroid sparing medications such as Tocilizumab (a biologic medication) or sometimes methotrexate. 

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Treatment of GCA is long and can be complicated. A skill-full and well-trained rheumatologist can help deal with this kind of diseases. 

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