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- Published on: 14 October 2021
- Published on: 14 October 2021Response to 'Impact of delayed diagnoses at the time of COVID-19: increased rate of preventable bilateral blindness in giant cell arteritis' by Monti et. al.
Monti et. al. reported a decrease in Fast Track Clinic (FTC) assessments for Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) during the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in irreversible visual loss; other groups have found increased incidence of GCA during the COVID-19 pandemic.1,2,3 We created an FTC in 2017 to rapidly evaluate and treat patients with possible GCA using vascular ultrasound and also noticed an increase in permanent vision loss. We conducted a medical records review study during two time periods of patients referred to the FTC with concern for GCA to evaluate how many had permanent visual loss.4 The “COVID-19 period” was defined as 3/1/2020-8/31/2020 the “pre-COVID-19 period was 3/1/2019-8/31/2019. Patients received an ultrasound for GCA performed by a specially trained vascular sonographer. A positive ultrasound for GCA had either halo sign with compression in the temporal arteries and branches or increased intima-media thickness (IMT) in the large vessels. Patients were referred for temporal artery biopsy (TAB) at the discretion of the rheumatologist.
25 patients were referred to the FTC during both the COVID-19 period and pre-COVID-19 period and nine diagnosed with GCA in each group. 52% of patients experienced symptoms for less than two weeks prior to presenting to medical care during the COVID-19 period, 48% pre-COVID-19. The median number of days from the time first seen in the medical system until referral to the FTC was 7 days during COVID-19 compared to 8.5 day...
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None declared.