Visual manifestations in giant cell arteritis: identification of risk factors from the ARTESER Registry

To determine the prevalence and predictive factors of visual manifestations in a large registry of patients with GCA.

ARTESER is a large Spanish multicentre registry supported by the Spanish Society of Rheumatology. It includes patients with GCA from across the entire country diagnosed between June 2013 and March 2019. The variables collected at diagnosis were demographics, clinical manifestations (including all visual manifestations), laboratory, temporal artery biopsy, and imaging findings (ultrasound, FDG-PET/CT, MRI angiography, CT angiography). Patients with and without visual involvement were compared in a bivariate analysis. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine potential predictive factors of visual manifestations.

The study population comprised 1636 GCA patients, of whom 599 (36.6%) presented visual manifestations. Anterior ischemic optic neuropathy was the most frequent (n = 274 of 599; 45.7%) ocular complication. The independent predictors that increased the risk (OR; 95% confidence interval) of visual involvement were older age (1.027; 1.009-1.045) and jaw claudication (1.724; 1.325-2.243). The variables associated with a reduced risk were polymyalgia rheumatica (0.541; 0.414-0.708), fever (0.373; 0.264-0.527), longer symptom duration (0.946; 0.909-0.985) and higher erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) (0.992; 0.988-0.997), common features of patients with large vessel GCA.

One-third of GCA patients present visual manifestations at diagnosis. Older age and jaw claudication are independent predictors of visual manifestations, whereas polymyalgia rheumatica, fever, longer symptom duration and high ESR reduce the risk of visual involvement.