Stroke and poor therapeutic adherence in giant cell arteritis: A case report

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is an inflammatory disease involving mainly the cranial arteries branches. We present a case of an old male with right hemiparesis that was admitted to our hospital. The subject’s daughter stated that the patient had gone to another clinic 3 months ago because he experienced anorexia and temple headache. A temporal artery biopsy proved GCA. Prednisone was started. Within one month, the prednisone-dose was 40mg/day. The patient was asymptomatic, but the prednisone-dose was maintained because he had elevated inflammatory markers. On admission, the subject had right limbs weakness and global aphasia with six hours of onset. Twelve hours after admission, the patient developed a seizure, and a CT-scan showed a hypodense area in the territory of the left middle cerebral artery. Upon further questioning, the subject’s family admitted that he reduced the dose of prednisone of 40 mg/day to 10-20 mg/day without any medical advice 2-weeks after the stroke.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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