Table 1.
Pre-treatment characteristics of newly diagnosed, treatment-naive giant cell arteritis and polymyalgia rheumatica patients, aged healthy controls, and aged infection controls.
| HC | GCA | PMR | INF | p-value HC vs. GCA | p-value HC vs. PMR | p-value HC vs. INF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n | 51 | 42 | 31 | 16 | – | – | – |
| Age in years; median (range) |
72 (57-91) |
72 (52-89) |
73 (54-84) |
74 (47-97) |
NS | NS | NS |
| Females (%) | 32 (63) | 28 (67) | 20 (65) | 5 (31) | NS | NS | 0.043 |
| Smoking status; smoking/non-smoking | 9/42 | 13/29 | 3/28 | 4/10 | NS | NS | NS |
| TAB positive/performed | NA | 23/29 | 0/6 | NA | – | – | – |
| FDG-PET-CT positive for GCA/PMR/GCA+PMR | NA | 19/0/10 | 0/23/0 | NA | – | – | – |
| IL-6 pg/mL; median (range)* |
1.5 (0.9–4.2) |
11.5 (1.4–233.6) |
19.8 (2-117) |
22.1 (0.9–152.7) |
<0.0001 | <0.0001 | <0.0001 |
| CRP mg/L; median (range) |
5 (0–7) |
47 (2.2–215) |
42 (3.2–186) |
70 (10-339) |
<0.0001 | <0.0001 | <0.0001 |
| ESR mm/h; median (range) |
10 (1-28) |
81 (7-121) |
57 (8-109) |
60 (10-118) |
<0.0001 | <0.0001 | <0.0001 |
| Hb mmol/L; median (range) |
9.0 (7.2–10.1) |
7.4 (5.5–8.5) |
7.5 (5.6–9.3) |
7.4 (5.2–9.8) |
<0.0001 | <0.0001 | 0.0038 |
| Platelets 109/mL; median (range) |
239 (121–345) |
358 (222–523) |
331 (170–562) |
275 (161–665) |
<0.0001 | <0.0001 | NS |
*
n for Interleukin-6 is as follows HC = 17, GCA = 40, PMR = 29, INF = 13. HC, healthy control; INF, infection control; TAB, temporal artery biopsy; FDG-PET-CT, 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography-computed tomography; IL-6, interleukin-6; Hb, hemoglobin; NS, not significant.