GCA patients can expect extended relief

Patients suffering from giant cell arteritis (GCA) can expect to finally have some relief coming their way with a study offering hope and a practical treatment option for them.

Researchers from Emory University and the Mayo Clinic said that recently diagnosed GCA patients can considerably taper off use of an oral steroid and these patients also relapsed less in the following year with just three days of a high-dose intravenous steroid.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Faced with these ineffective new agents and with the limitations and drawbacks of the current treatment, Dr. Goronzy and Dr. Weyand turned to animal models. After implanting inflamed arteries into mice, they observed the effect of different doses of steroids on the inflammation. "We learned that the doses of steroids, although already high, really didn’t take away the disease," says Dr. Weyand. "But if we increased the dose to very high levels, we could then eradicate the inflammation."

Equipped with those initial results, they designed a double-blind human study to examine whether a brief period of pulsing with high-dose intravenous steroids soon after diagnosis could reduce the long-term need for prednisone and improve patient recovery.

As the article and an accompanying editorial report, the research showed extremely positive long-term results. Those patients who had been given the initial high dosage had fewer relapses of the disease (21, as compared to 37 relapses). Seventy-one percent were also able to reduce their daily dose of prednisone to 5 milligrams after a year of treatment (compared to only 15 percent in the control group), avoiding the need for long-term steroids.

This study was published in an issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Dana Foundation, the Mayo Foundation and the National Institutes of Health General Clinical Research Center.