Background: Recently increasing attention has been paid to temporal arteritis which is not a very rare disease. Early establishment of the diagnosis and start of therapy can reduce serious visual complications.
Patients and methods: The temporal arteries of 10 patients with temporal arteritis, 8 patients with polymyalgia rheumatica, and 23 controls were investigated with a high resolution ultrasound system, measuring size of lumen and wall as well as blood flow velocity.
Results: Colour doppler sonography of the superficial temporal artery showed a characteristic hypoechoic halo around the perfused lumen of an often stenosed or occluded artery. Neither patients with polymyalgia rheumatica nor controls had this hypoechoic halo. The halo disappeared 10-14 days after start of therapy with glucocorticoids.
Conclusions: We think that colour doppler sonography of the temporal arteries is a simple, quick, and non-invasive method to diagnose temporal arteritis. When there will be more experience, sensitivity and specificity of the method can be defined. Perhaps sonography might replace biopsy in some cases in the future.