Increased risk of cardiovascular disease in giant cell arteritis: a general population-based study

To determine the risk of newly recorded myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke among incident GCA cases compared with controls from the general population. We also evaluated time trends during follow-up.

We conducted a matched cohort study (1996-2010) of all patients with incident GCA from the province of British Columbia, Canada. We estimated incidence rates of MI and stroke according to GCA disease duration. We calculated hazard ratios (HRs), adjusting for potential confounders.

Among 809 individuals with GCA (mean age 75.9 years, 75.8% female), 83 developed MI and 60 developed stroke, with corresponding incidence rates of 38.1 and 26.4/1000 person-years, respectively. Compared with non-GCA cases, the age-, sex- and entry time-matched HRs were 2.75 (95% CI 2.16, 3.50) for MI and 2.21 (95% CI 1.68, 2.91) for stroke. When other covariates were adjusted for, the corresponding HRs were 1.77 (95% CI 1.29, 2.43) and 2.04 (95% CI 1.43, 2.93). The age-, sex- and entry time-matched HRs for MI and stroke were highest during the first year after GCA diagnosis [4.76 (95% CI 3.29, 6.88) and 3.20 (95% CI 2.11, 4.87), respectively].

These findings provide general population-based evidence that GCA patients are at a substantially increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Increased monitoring for this potentially fatal outcome and its modifiable risk factors is warranted for GCA patients.