Utilidad de la biopsia de la arteria temporal en el diagnóstico de la arteritis de células gigantes

Objective. To attempt to assess the utility of temporal artery biopsy in the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis.
Patients and methods. A review was carried out of the clinical records of 43 patients who underwent temporal artery biopsy between 1996 and 1997 due to the clinical suspicion of giant cell arteritis. Clinical and analytical data were collected for the different histopathological types and the attempt was made to determine whether there was any relationship between them. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and diagnostic reliability were calculated for the patients with a positive biopsy. The chi-squared test was used to determine the differences in the clinical and analytical parameters of the various diagnostic groups; p < 0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.
Results. Of the 44 biopsies, 16 were negative, 8 disclosed the presence of giant cell arteritis and 20 of arteriosclerosis (in the latter group, one patient underwent bilateral biopsy). The overall sensitivity was 18.18%. Among the patients with positive biopsies, the sensitivity rose to 28.57%, with a diagnostic reliability of 54.54%. There were no differences among the diagnostic groups with respect to age, sex or clinical and analytical parameters with the exception of arthralgias, which were more common among patients with arterioscle-
rosis.
Conclusion. A more careful selection should be made of the patients who are to undergo temporal artery biopsy since that is the only way to make this test useful and cost-effective.