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 * |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (n = 44) | (n = 74) | (n = 43) | (n = 20) | |||
| 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