Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about Giant Cell Arteritis.

And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at zero definals.com slash giant cell arthritis

or in the rheumatology section of the zero definals medicine book.

Let's get straight into it.

Giant cell arteritis is a type of systemic vasculitis that affects the median and large arteries in the body.

So vasculitis is inflammation of the arteries or the blood vessels.

It's systemic because it affects blood vessels throughout the entire body.

It typically presents with symptoms affecting the temporal arteries

and it's also known as temporal arthritis.

And these are the temporal arteries just on the side of the forehead, just above and in front of the ears. There's a strong link between giant

cell arthritis and polymyalogrammatica, and patients are at higher risk of both conditions when they're

female Caucasians above the age of 50.

The key complication of giant cell arthritis is loss of vision, and this is often irreversible.

High dose steroids are used immediately once a diagnosis is suspected to prevent the development

or progression of vision loss. So what are the symptoms and when would you suspect giant cell arthritis as a diagnosis?

Well the main presenting feature is a headache.

This is typically a severe unilateral headache that's focused around the temple and the forehead areas.

There can also be scalp tenderness, so this might be noticed when the patient is brushing their

hair or when they're touching their head where the pain is, they notice the tenderness in that

area.

...