We report the case of a 70-year-old patient who presented with fever of unknown origin. The initial diagnosis was infective endocarditis as a mitral valve vegetation was found in a transesophageal echocardiogram. Lack of response to empiric antibiotic treatment and further diagnostic work-up established the correct diagnosis of marantic endocarditis due to temporal arteritis. Treatment with ste...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to describe typical ultrasonographic findings of vertebral arteries in patients affected by giant cell arteritis. METHODS Color duplex sonography was used to asses the cervical arteries within 24 hours from stroke onset in 1237 patients. Vertebral arteritis was considered if concentric, homogeneous, and smooth hypoechogenic mural thickening...

A 68-year-old man was admitted because of a pulsatile mass and pain in the left temporal region, and computed tomography demonstrated the superficial temporal artery aneurysm. He underwent aneurysmectomy, and pathologic investigation revealed marked thickness of the adventitia with substantial plasmacyte infiltration. On immunoglobulin G4 (IgG4) immunohistochemistry, IgG4-positive lymphocytes w...

Polymyalgia rheumatica is a clinical syndrome affecting middle-aged and elderly persons and is characterized by periarthritic and muscular pain and stiffness particularly in the shoulder and hip girdles. Systemic symptoms are present, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (E.S.R.) is greatly elevated, and the Waaler-Rose test is almost invariably negative. Suppression of symptoms with corticostero...

Criteria for the classification of giant cell (temporal) arteritis were developed by comparing 214 patients who had this disease with 593 patients with other forms of vasculitis. For the traditional format classification, 5 criteria were selected: age 1 5 0 years at disease onset, new onset of localized headache, temporal artery tenderness or decreased temporal artery pulse, elevated erythrocyt...