The Thromboembolic Risk in Giant Cell Arteritis: A Critical Review of the Literature

Table 2

Criteria for the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis (American College of Rheumatology, 1990) (mod. from Hunder et al. [31]).

Criteria	Definition
Age	Onset of the symptoms at age 50 or older
Recent onset of severe headache	Onset of a new type of pain located in the head
Anomalies of the temporal artery	Pain in the palpation of the temporal artery or reduced pulsatility, not connected to atherosclerosis of the cervical arteries
Increase of ESR	ESR > 40 mm/h
Typical abnormalities of the biopsy of the temporal artery	Vasculitis typically characterized by an infiltrate of mononuclear cells or inflammation of granuloma with multinuclear giant cells