On Friday 23 August at 14:00, Andreas Wiggers Nielsen defends his PhD dissertation entitled "Diagnosing Polymyalgia Rheumatica using FDG-PET/CT and estimating incidence of Late-onset Giant Cell Arteritis using repeated Vascular Ultrasonography".

Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) and giant cell arteritis (GCA) often coexist. However, it is uncertain whether the development of GCA later in the PMR disease course represent a late-onset or an initially overlooked GCA diagnosis. Additionally, correctly diagnosing PMR can be challenging as other diseases can present with similar symptoms. Unfortunately, 50% of these patients are already started on prednisolone treatment before rheumatological evaluation, which can mask the symptoms. FDGPET/CT has been suggested as a diagnostic tool, but it remains unclear whether FDG-PET/CT can be used after the initiation of prednisolone.

101 patients suspected of PMR were included and examined for coexisting GCA at baseline and during a one-year follow-up period. The PMR patients underwent FDG-PET/CT before and during prednisolone treatment, as well as after a short-term prednisolone discontinuation.

This study demonstrated that 1) coexisting asymptomatic GCA at PMR diagnosis is rare, and the frequency of late-onset GCA within the first year is low, 2) using FDG-PET/CT to assist the clinical diagnosis can reduce the risk of misdiagnosis, and 3) prednisolone treatment reduces the diagnostic accuracy of FDG-PET/CT for PMR, while a short-term prednisolone discontinuation can improve the diagnostic quality.

The summary is written by the PhD student. 

The defence is public and takes place in Auditorium J116-113, Aarhus University Hospital. Please see the press release for more information. 

Contact

PhD student Andreas Wiggers Nielsen

Mail: andrenie@rm.dk

Phone: (+45) 30956515

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