Polymyalgia rheumatica and rheumatoid arthritis may be difficult to differentiate in elderly patients. Polymyalgic symptoms are common in the prodromal phase of rheumatoid arthritis and, as specific diagnostic tests do not exist for either condition, criteria for diagnosis of the diseases are based largely on clinical features. I2 The presence ofsynovitis similar to rheumatoid arthritis in some...

BACKGROUND Polymyalgia rheumatica is one of the most common inflammatory rheumatologic conditions in older adults. Other inflammatory rheumatologic disorders are associated with an excess risk of vascular disease. We investigated whether polymyalgia rheumatica is associated with an increased risk of vascular events. METHODS We used the General Practice Research Database to identify patients w...

A 58-year-old woman presented with the classical features of polymyalgia rheumatica. She also had a global dementia; CT scan and EEG showed diffuse cerebral disease. After steroid treatment, the polymyalgia rheumatica and dementia rapidly resolved and the CT scan and EEG became normal. The inter-relationships of the giant cell arteritides are discussed in the light of this report of the associa...

Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) is an uncommon disorder characterized by bilateral pain and stiffness in the shoulder and pelvic girdles. Polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis (GCA) occur in the same patient population and share a common pathogenesis. Giant cell arteritis predominantly affects the cranial arteries and rarely involves the gastrointestinal tract. Moreover, giant cell arter...

The transformation response of peripheral blood lymphocytes in vitro to human arterial and muscle antigen has been studied in patients with polymyalgia rheumatica, polymyositis, rheumatoid arthritis, and polyarteritis, and polyarteritis nodosa and in unrelated controls. Lymphocytes from patients with polymyalgia rheumatica showed transformation responses significantly higher to artery antigen t...

Polymyalgia rheumatica is an inflammatory disease of unknown etiology affecting individuals aged fifty years and older, mainly of Caucasian ethnicity. Polymyalgia rheumatica is associated with giant cell arteritis more frequently than expected by chance alone. In both conditions, females are affected two to three times more often than males. The clinical hallmark manifestations of polymyalgia r...

Polymyalgia rheumatica is an inflammatory disease affecting elderly and involving the shoulder and pelvic girdles. No epidemiological study of polymyalgia rheumatica was conducted in Korea. We retrospectively evaluated patients with polymyalgia rheumatica followed up at the rheumatology clinics of 10 tertiary hospitals. In total 51 patients, 36 patients (70.6%) were female. Age at disease onset...

Glucocorticoids are highly effective in treating polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis, but their use is associated with numerous adverse events. Therefore, it is important to use them for the shortest period of time possible. The published evidence suggests that discontinuation of GC is feasible in a substantial number of patients with polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis ...

There is a fairly common form of rheumatism which afflicts the elderly with pains in the head, neck, back, and proximal parts of the limbs, with stiffness of movement and with constitutional illness. It is associated with a raised sedimentation rate (E.S.R.) and a mild hypergammaglobulinaemia, and women are affected more frequently than men. There is as yet no specific test for this condition, ...

Giant cell arteritis is often referred to in the context of polymyalgia rheumatica with temporal artery involvement. There are, however, more malignant forms of presentation of this necrotizing arteritis involving either the great vessels of the aorta or, occasionally, the pulmonary arteries. Our case relates to giant cell arteritis presenting as pulmonary artery obstruction in a patient withou...