TY - JOUR T1 - Response to ‘Correspondence on ‘Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on patients with large-vessels vasculitis in Italy: a monocentric survey’’ by Montero <em>et al</em> JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2021-220959 SP - annrheumdis-2021-220959 AU - Alessandro Tomelleri AU - Lorenzo Dagna AU - Corrado Campochiaro Y1 - 2021/07/02 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/early/2021/07/01/annrheumdis-2021-220959.abstract N2 - We read with interest the correspondence by Montero et al1 on our study about the impact of novel COVID-19 on Italian patients with large vessel vasculitis.2 First of all, we thank the authors for the positive appraisal of our study and for providing their original contribution, which certainly enhances our knowledge of the influence that the COVID-19 pandemic had, and is still having, on patients affected by giant cell arteritis (GCA).The authors performed a comparative study evaluating the rate of referral to their ultrasound fast-track clinic (FTC) in Madrid before and during the first 8 months of the pandemic (July 2019–February 2020 and March 2020–October 2020). Interestingly, since the COVID-19 outbreak, they observed a 38% reduction in GCA FTC referrals, … ER -