Advances in the treatment of giant cell arteritis

Abstract

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is the most common vasculitis among elderly people. The clinical spectrum of the disease is heterogeneous, with a classic/cranial phenotype, and another extracranial or large vessel phenotype as the two more characteristic patterns. Permanent visual loss is the main short-term complication. Glucocorticoids (GC) remain the cornerstone of treatment. However, the percentage of relapses with GC alone is high, and the rate of adverse events affects more than 80% of patients, so it is necessary to have alternative therapeutic options, especially in patients with worse prognostic factors or high comorbidity. MTX is the only DMARD that has shown to reduce the cumulative dose of GC, while tocilizumab is the first biologic agent approved due to its ability to decrease the relapse rate and lower the cumulative GC doses. However, apart from the IL-6 pathway, there are other pro-inflammatory cytokines and growth factors involved in the typical intima hyperplasia and vascular remodeling of GCA. Among them, the more promising targets in GCA treatment are the IL12/IL23 axis antagonists, IL17 inhibitors, modulators of T lymphocytes, and inhibitors of either the JAK/STAT pathway, the granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, or the endothelin, all of which are updated in this review

Funding: This line of research on vasculitis has been partially supported by FOREUM (Program Foundation for Research in Rheumatology) to the "START Project", granted to Nicolò Pipitone (Reggio Emilia, Italy), in which SC and MAG-G are the main Spanish researchers (Spanish project number: NPI-TOC-2019-01). Moreover, this line of research has also been supported in part by RETICS Programs, RD08/0075 (RIER), RD12/0009/0013 and RD16/0012 from "Instituto de Salud Carlos III" (ISCIII) (Spain). However, this study did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the commercial or not-for-profit sectors.