Thorsten Alexander Bley1, Julia Geiger2, Markus Both3, Thomas Ness2, Peter Vaith2, Michael Markl4, Bernhard Nlle3, Thorsten Klink
1Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany; 2University Hospital Freiburg; 3University Hospital Kiel; 4Northwestern University
Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a diagnostic challenge. Single center studies have demonstrates the value of high resolution MRI to visualize mural inflammatory changes in GCA. This multicenter cohort study compares high resolution MRI with the diagnostic gold standard temporal artery biopsy in a rather large cohort of GCA patients form 3 academic medical centers. Two blinded reader achieved high sensitivities (95% and 89%) and specificities (73% and 80%) in detection of mural inflammatory changes in GCA with substantial inter-observer-agreement (kappa = 0.657).