Coronary artery stenting in acute coronary syndrome associated with giant cell arteritis

Coronary vasculitis is a rare but devastating complication of giant cell arteritis, otherwise known as temporal arteritis. Originally named for its propensity to attack the superficial temporal arteries, it is now recognized that it commonly involves a number of medium and large arteries throughout the body. Here we describe two cases of giant cell arteritis affecting the coronary arteries, one discovered at post-mortem and one which was successfully treated with immunosuppressive therapy and drug-eluting coronary stents. <Learning objective: Giant cell arteritis is a large vessel vasculitis which commonly affects the superficial temporal, subclavian arteries, and aorta but in rare cases can involve the coronary arteries. In addition to standard corticosteroid therapy, drug-eluting stents may be useful in treating this rare but serious disease. Clinicians should both consider this condition in patients with atypical features of coronary artery disease and recognize drug-eluting stents as a potential effective therapy.>.