Epidemiology of giant-cell arteritis in an Arab population: a 22-year study.

Abstract

To study the epidemiology of biopsy-proven giant-cell arteritis (GCA) in an Arab population with clinical features suggestive of GCA. Clinical records of 102 patients who underwent temporal artery biopsy (TAB) at King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from January 1983 to December 2004 were reviewed. Among the 56 men and 46 women who had TAB, 7 (6.8%) had biopsy-proven GCA. The mean (SD) age of the biopsy-positive group (71.7 (8.6) years) was higher than in the biopsy-negative group (65 (9.8) years; p = 0.005). None of the untreated patients with a negative TAB developed additional symptoms that are typical of GCA. The small absolute number of biopsy-proven cases of GCA implies a relatively low incidence of GCA in Arab population, confirming previous observations that GCA occurs primarily in the Caucasian population.