[When should Horton's disease be suspected?].
The high clinical polymorphism of temporal arteritis is due to the scattering of the vasculitis out of the carotid artery territory. Typical clinical manifestations are present in a majority of patients. The main symptoms are headache, affecting two thirds of the patients, fever and (or) weight loss, or jaw claudication in one third. Ophthalmic disorders are still too frequent and temporal arteritis remains the first cause of vascular blindness in the elderly. Some constitutional symptoms, also frequent like thoracic or hepatic manifestations, are less known but may evoke diagnosis when the clinician is aware of them. Moreover fever may be solitary. Association between such symptoms with a biological inflammatory response, may lead clinician to the diagnosis.
Roblot
P
P
Service de médecine interne et maladies infectieuses, CHU La Milétrie, Poitiers.
D000368:Aged; D002339:Carotid Arteries / Q000473:pathology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005334:Fever / Q000209:etiology; D013700:Giant Cell Arteritis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D006261:Headache / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D007571:Jaw Diseases / Q000209:etiology; D015431:Weight Loss