Toux chronique révélant une maladie de Horton

PET FDG CT is useful for giant-cell arteritis with isolated cough

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a chronic vasculitis of large- and medium-sized vessels. The most frequent symptoms are temporal headaches, scalp tenderness, jaw claudication and polymyalgia rheumatica in 35% of patients. Atypical presentation with dry cough is very rare and could be isolated making the diagnosis difficult. Initial imaging including PET-CT could be helpful. Literature review yielded 13 case reports with available data and one case series which focused on cough and which were all be included in this study. Most of the cases included males (n = 8), with mostly isolated cough or associated to fever and weight loss. Angio-CT of aortic wall was mostly normal, whereas FDG PET-CT showed in all available cases abnormal arterial thoracic uptake. Temporal artery biopsy was almost suggestive of GCA in all available cases. Cough was steroid responsive usually within few days in all cases without any need of combined therapy. Giant cell arteritis is the most common large-vessel vasculitis over the age of 50 in western countries. Isolated dry cough is extremely rare and encountered in less than 5% of cases.

Giant cell arteritis manifested by chronic dry cough

A 77-year-old man visited the hospital with a chronic cough persisting for 2.5 months accompanied with night sweats, weight loss (3.5 kg) and elevated C-reactive protein level. Chest CT of the lung field was normal, but aortic wall thickening accompanied by a contrast effect was noted. Positron emission tomography-CT (PET-CT) showed that the aorta and subclavian artery were inflamed, suggesting large-vessel vasculitis. Ultrasonography showed thickening of the superficial temporal artery wall (macaroni sign). Biopsy revealed lymphocytic infiltration in the tunica media and foreign-body giant cell reaction with the elastic lamina, resulting in a diagnosis of giant cell arteritis (GCA). The cough was considered a symptom of GCA as it resolved following prednisolone administration. Cough may rarely be an initial GCA symptom. However, for chronic cough accompanied with elevated inflammatory findings but with a normal lung field, imaging studies such as PET-CT are useful for the differential diagnosis.

[Tinnitus indicative of Horton disease]

La maladie de Horton est une artérite giganto-cellulaire touchant les artères de gros et de moyen calibre du territoire céphalique. Elle a une expression clinico-biologique polymorphe. Le diagnostic de certitude est posé devant des formes typiques comportant des critères diagnostiques cliniques et paracliniques établis par l'ACR (American College of Rhumatology). Cependant certaines formes atypiques de la maladie peuvent faire retarder le diagnostic, c'est le cas notamment des formes révélées par des manifestations ORL qui sont inhabituelles et peu spécifiques. Le but de ce travail est de rapporter un cas atypique de la maladie de Horton révélé par des acouphènes, le retard diagnostique pouvant être à l'origine d'une mauvaise prise en charge thérapeutique, avec des risques de complications vasculaires graves.