Giant-Cell or Temporal Arteritis: a Review.

The first case of what is now known as temporal, cranial, or giant-cell arteritis was published in 1890 by Jonathan Hutchinson. He described how the 80-year-old father of a London Hospital bedle came to him complaining that he could not put his hat on because of painful swellings in his temples. These proved to be red, inflamed, swollen temporal arteries which subsequently lost their pulsations and were left as hard cords after the condition healed. The man recovered and lived for a number of years. The next case was recorded in 1930 by Schmidt. His patient showed the characteristic clinical picture and is of interest because he developed an intracranial aneurysm, a complication which has since been recorded in one other case (Andersen, 1947a). In 1932, HoTton, Magath and Brown, of the Mayo Clinic, described two cases and, being presumably unaware of Hutchinson's and Schmidt's cases, regarded them as examples of a new disease and gave the condition the name of " temporal arteritis." They believed that the disease was limited to these arteries and followed a benign course free from complications. In 1934 and 1937 they recorded five further cases. In 1934 Paviot and others recorded the first case from France, but they did not mention any previously published cases and do not appear to have recognized the significance of their case. It is, however, interesting to note that their patient showed signs of involvement of the carotids as well as of the temporal arteries. In 1935 Barnard described the post mortem findings in a woman who had shown some of the signs of temporal arteritis and who had become blind. The temporal -rteries were not described either in the clinical or autopsy account, but the description of the histology in the carotid and coronary arteries strongly suggests that this was an example of what is now called "giant-cell arteritis." In 1938 Jennings described the first two British cases corresponding to the descriptions of Horton and others, and he was the first to recognize blindness 0 as a complication of this disease. Since then caseshave been recorded from U.S.A., Britain, France, and Scandinavia; the total of published cases to date is 75.