OBJECTIVES Since the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) is a key early mediator of the response to ischemia and giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a polygenic disease leading to severe ischemic complications, in the present study we analysed for first time the implication of two HIF-1alpha gene polymorphisms in the susceptibility to and clinical expression of GCA. METHODS Two ...

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is reported world-wide. However, the incidence varies greatly in different geographic regions with the highest incidence rates from Scandinavian countries and North American populations of the same descent. The etiopathogenesis of GCA is incompletely understood. Although data on a positive correlation between the occurrence of infection and the onset of GCA as well as...

Introduction Herpes zoster, which can have a major impact on quality of life, results from reactivation of a latent varicella zoster virus (VZV) infection. We hypothesized that giant cell arteritis (GCA) patients are at increased risk of herpes zoster because of treatment with high-dose glucocorticoids and advanced age. Aim of the study, therefore, was to determine cell-mediated and humoral imm...

acuminatum (GCA) on the penile foreskin. Buschke and Lowenstein further elaborated on this clinical entity in 1925. 2 GCA, synonymous with BuschkeLowenstein tumor, is a variant of condyloma acuminatum, which appeared cytologically benign but behaved in a malignant manner with the risk of transformation to invasive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). GCA is characterized by its aggressiveness to unde...

AIM Evaluation of the diagnostic contribution of color duplex sonography of the temporal, carotid and vertebral arteries and doppler sonography of the periorbital arteries in patients with and without giant cell arteries (GCA) particularly to distinguish between arteritic and nonarteritic neuro-ophthalmological vascular complications (NOC). METHODS In a prospective study ultrasonographic find...

OBJECTIVE Aberrant rho kinase (ROCK) activity is implicated in the pathogenesis of several vascular diseases and is associated with Th17 differentiation. Th17 immune response is recognized in the pathogenesis of GCA. The aim of this study was to assess ROCK activity in GCA. METHODS All patients who underwent temporal artery biopsy (TAB) at a tertiary care centre over 5 years were identified a...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a serious disease and the most common cause of vasculitis in the elderly. Here, studies describing the recent discovery of varicella zoster virus (VZV) in the temporal arteries of patients with GCA are reviewed. RECENT FINDINGS GCA is characterized by severe headache/head pain and scalp tenderness. Many patients also have a history of vision los...

Guanylyl cyclase A (GCA) and soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC) encode GCs in Dictyostelium and have a topology similar to 12-transmembrane and soluble adenylyl cyclase, respectively. We demonstrate that all detectable GC activity is lost in a cell line in which both genes have been inactivated. Cell lines with one gene inactivated were used to characterize the other guanylyl cyclase (i.e. GCA in s...

PURPOSE In patients with suspected giant cell arteritis (GCA), a search for the perivascular halo sign, a sophisticated color duplex ultrasound (CDU) finding, at experienced centers reliably identifies inflamed temporal arteries (TA). We tested whether TA compression in patients with GCA, a simple, largely operator-independent maneuver, elicits contrasting echogenicity between the diseased arte...

Artificial selection of high yield crops and better livestock is paramount importance in breeding programs. Selection of elite parents with preferred traits from a phalanx of inbred lines is extremely laborious, time-consuming and highly random. General combining ability (GCA) was proposed and has been widely used for the evaluation of parents in hybrid breeding for more than half a century. Ho...