TEMPORAL ARTERITIS: Review of the Literature and Report of Five Additional Cases

BENIGN arteritis and periarteritis of the temporal arteries was first described as a distinct clinical entity in 1932 by Horton. Magath, and Brown.¹ Since this time there have been reported in the literature 43 cases which seem to fall into the category of temporal arteritis. This disease is characterized by systemic symptoms of fever, anorexia, malaise, loss of weight and weakness; and local symptoms consisting of tender, swollen, nodular and thrombosed temporal arteries, with severe throbbing headache. Edema around the involved vessels is common. Pain in the adjacent structures, such as the scalp, face, jaws, eyes and temporomandibular joints, is also seen fairly constantly. Blindness has been a distressingly frequent complication of the disease. Some investigators, notably Cooke and his co-workers² and Chasnoff and Vorzimer,³ have suggested that the disease is neither as benign nor as localized as was formerly thought. In order to evaluate this entity