Sex Differences in Phenotypes and Imaging Examination in Giant Cell Arteritis: Data from the ARTESER Registry

Delia Fernández-Lozano¹, Marta Domínguez-Álvaro², Javier Narvaez-García³, Noemí Garrido-Puñal⁴, Eugenio De Miguel⁵, Paula Estrada-Alarcón⁶, Iñigo Hernández-Rodríguez⁷, Maite Silva-Diaz⁸, Joaquín M Belzunegui⁹, Clara Moriano¹⁰, Julio Sánchez-Martín¹¹, Itziar Calvo¹², Vicente Aldasoro¹³, lydia Abasolo Alcazar¹⁴, Javier Loricera¹⁵, Patricia Moya¹⁶, María García-Villanueva¹⁷, Fernando Sánchez-Alonso², Santos Castañeda¹⁸, José L. Hernández¹⁹ and Ricardo Blanco-Alonso²⁰, and ARTESER Project Collaborative Group, ¹Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia, Valencia, Spain, ²Sociedad Española de Reumatología, Madrid, Spain, ³Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge, Barcelona, Spain, ⁴Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío, Sevilla, Spain, ⁵Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid, Spain, ⁶Hospital de San Juan Despí Moisès Broggi, Barcelona, Spain, ⁷Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Vigo, Vigo, Spain, ⁸Complejo Hospitalario Universitario A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain, ⁹Hospital Universitario Donostia, San Sebastián, Spain, ¹⁰Hospital León, LEON, Spain, ¹¹Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Madrid, Spain, ¹²Hospital Universitario de Basurto, Bilbao, Spain, ¹³Hospital Universitario de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, ¹⁴IdISSC. HCSC, Madrid, Spain, ¹⁵Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, IDIVAL, Santander, Spain, ¹⁶Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona, Spain, ¹⁷Hospital Ramón y Cajal, MADRID, Madrid, Spain, ¹⁸Hospital Universitario de la Princesa, Madrid, Spain, ¹⁹University of Cantabria. IDIVAL, Santander, Spain, ²⁰Division of Rheumatology, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla. IDIVAL, Immunopathology group, Santander, Spain

Meeting: ACR Convergence 2024

Keywords: gender, giant cell arteritis, Vasculitis

Session Information

Date: Sunday, November 17, 2024

Title: Vasculitis – Non-ANCA-Associated & Related Disorders Poster II

Session Type: Poster Session B

Session Time: 10:30AM-12:30PM

Background/Purpose: Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a predominantly female vasculitis. There are several studies that attempt to report the differences in the presentation of this disease between male and female with contradictory results. The main objective of this study was to determine whether there were differences in phenotype and imaging tests used for diagnosis between sexes in a large cohort of GCA.

Methods: ARTESER is a large Spanish multicenter epidemiological registry of GCA promoted by the Spanish Society of Rheumatology in which 26 national hospitals participated. The recruitment period was between June 2013 and March 2019. Standardized data were included for all patients diagnosed with GCA in these centers, including demographic, clinical, laboratory, imaging, temporal artery biopsy, and disease evolution data among others. Differences between sexes were compared in a bivariate analysis. The statistical analysis was performed by using STATA statistical package, V.13.1 and SPSS version 21.0.

Results: 1675 patients with GCA were included, 1178 women and 497 men, with higher annual incidence of GCA in the female group than in the male group (10.07 [95%CI: 8.7-11.5] vs 4.83 [95%CI: 3.8-5.9] cases of GCA per 100 000 people ≥50 years). The distribution of the disease by phenotypes showed a statistically significant higher frequency of the cranial and mixed phenotypes in males versus females (69.62% vs. 63.24%; p=0.012; and 13.68% vs. 8.66%; p=0.002, respectively). Results are shown in Table 1.

Focusing on the imaging examinations used for diagnosis, ultrasound of the temporal artery was positive in a higher percentage of men than women (34.0% vs 26.6%; p=0.025). No other differences were found between male and female population in the rest of the imaging techniques used (Table 2).

Conclusion: GCA predominated in women. The cranial and mixed phenotypes were more frequent in males. Temporal artery ultrasound had more positive results in males than in females.

Table 1. Presentation of phenotypes according to sex in ARTESER registry.

Table 2: Positive imaging tests used in the diagnosis of GCA according to sex in ARTESER registry.

Disclosures: D. Fernández-Lozano: None; M. Domínguez-Álvaro: None; J. Narvaez-García: None; N. Garrido-Puñal: None; E. De Miguel: AbbVie/Abbott, 5, 6, BMS, 5, 6, Eli Lilly, 5, 6, Grunental, 5, 6, Janssen, 5, 6, Merck/MSD, 5, 6, Novartis, 5, 6, Pfizer, 5, 6, Roche, 5, 6, sanofi, 5, 6, UCB, 5, 6; P. Estrada-Alarcón: None; I. Hernández-Rodríguez: None; M. Silva-Diaz: None; J. Belzunegui: None; C. Moriano: None; J. Sánchez-Martín: None; I. Calvo: None; V. Aldasoro: None; l. Abasolo Alcazar: None; J. Loricera: AstraZeneca, 2, 6, Celgene, 2, 6, Eli Lilly, 5, Janssen, 5, Merck/MSD, 2, 5, 6, Novartis, 12, Formation/Congress attendance, Pfizer, 5, Roche, 2, 5, 6, UCB, 2, 5, 6; P. Moya: None; M. García-Villanueva: None; F. Sánchez-Alonso: None; S. Castañeda: Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMS), 2, 6, Eli Lilly, 2, 6, Merck/MSD, 2, 5, 6, Pfizer, 5, Roche, 2, 6, UCB, 2, 5; J. Hernández: None; R. Blanco-Alonso: AbbVie, 2, 5, 6, Bristol-Myers Squibb, 2, 6, Galapagos, 6, Janssen, 2, 6, Lilly, 2, 6, MSD, 2, 5, 6, Pfizer, 2, 6, Roche, 2, 5, 6.

To cite this abstract in AMA style:

Fernández-Lozano D, Domínguez-Álvaro M, Narvaez-García J, Garrido-Puñal N, De Miguel E, Estrada-Alarcón P, Hernández-Rodríguez I, Silva-Diaz M, Belzunegui J, Moriano C, Sánchez-Martín J, Calvo I, Aldasoro V, Abasolo Alcazar l, Loricera J, Moya P, García-Villanueva M, Sánchez-Alonso F, Castañeda S, Hernández J, Blanco-Alonso R. Sex Differences in Phenotypes and Imaging Examination in Giant Cell Arteritis: Data from the ARTESER Registry [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2024; 76 (suppl 9). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/sex-differences-in-phenotypes-and-imaging-examination-in-giant-cell-arteritis-data-from-the-arteser-registry/. Accessed .

ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/sex-differences-in-phenotypes-and-imaging-examination-in-giant-cell-arteritis-data-from-the-arteser-registry/