Temporal arteritis, or giant cell arteritis, is an important disease erroneously considered to be rare because of lack of awareness and recognition of the disease by physicians. According to the authors, their primary aim is to increase physicians' awareness of temporal arteritis and to help them recognize and treat the dreaded disease.
This monograph is essentially a review of most of the literature on systemic manifestations of temporal arteritis, with occasional reference to the authors' experiences with the disease. After a historical review, various systemic clinical manifestations of temporal arteritis, eg, myalgia, malaise, anorexia, weight loss, fever, anemia, malignancy-like presentation, cranial and neurological manifestations, aortic arch syndrome, and cardiac disorders are discussed.
There is a detailed account of the clinical picture of polymyalgia rheumatica. Whether polymyalgia rheumatica is always a manifestation of temporal arteritis or not is discussed at length; the conclusion is that the question cannot yet be answered