The effect of clinical features and glucocorticoids on biopsy findings in giant cell arteritis

Table 3 Features recorded in pathology reports, stratified by time from initiation of glucocorticoid treatment to biopsy

Time from treatment start to biopsy	≤0 days	1-3 days	4-6 days	7-28 days	p	p for trend *
Time from treatment start to biopsy	(n = 44)	(n = 74)	(n = 43)	(n = 20)	p	p for trend *
Inflammatory infiltrates	39 (89 %)	52 (70 %)	35 (81 %)	15 (75 %)	0.12	0.95
Biopsy positive	38 (86 %)	51 (69 %)	34 (79 %)	16 (80 %)	0.17	0.64
Fragmented internal elastic lamina	20 (45 %)	33 (45 %)	21 (49 %)	10 (50 %)	0.86	0.65
Giant cells	21 (48 %)	23 (31 %)	23 (53 %)	8 (40 %)	0.10	0.73
Granuloma	9 (20 %)	6 (8 %)	4 (9 %)	3 (15 %)	0.19	0.28
Fibrosis	4 (9 %)	15 (20 %)	8 (19 %)	4 (20 %)	0.47	0.24
Minor inflammatory infiltrates ^a	13 (30 %)	27 (36 %)	14 (33 %)	6 (30 %)	0.87	0.94
Major inflammatory infiltrates ^b	23 (52 %)	23 (31 %)	21 (49 %)	9 (45 %)	0.09	0.90

^aLesions described as “limited infiltrates”, “minor inflammation” etc. were classified as minor inflammatory infiltrates
^bLesions described as “massive inflammation”, “typical GCA” or using similar wording were classified as major inflammatory infiltrates
^*The Mann–Whitney U test was used to assess differences in the distribution of category of time on treatment with glucocorticoids among those with vs. without specific histopathology features

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