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Query: UMLS:C0039483 (giant cell arteritis)
 3,204 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This paper contains a review of the signs and symptoms of giant cell arteritis, especially speech and respiratory manifestations of the disease, which are demonstrated by a new case history. An elderly woman presented with speech that was falsetto, breathy, and marked by downward pitch breaks and phonation breaks. In addition, she had visual loss, headache, edema along the scalp and pharyngeal arteries, polymyalgia rheumatica, elevation of Westergren erythrocyte sedimentation rates, and positive arterial biopsy results. Her speech disorder recurred during an exacerbation. A vascular mechanism is proposed to explain her unusual speech, acute recurrence, and rapid recovery. This explanation (reversible ischemia of the laryngeal musculature) has been proposed by other authors in previous studies.
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PMID:Speech pathology in giant cell arteritis. Review and case report. 281 76

A 77-year-old woman was admitted because of progressive vertigo, nausea and a dysarthric speech disorder. The patient's history of diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia, and the finding of murmurs over peripheral arteries at physical examination led to a presumptive diagnosis of cerebellar ischaemia in the context of generalized atherosclerosis. However, the diagnosis was revised when bilateral cerebellar infarction was demonstrated radiologically, and a biopsy of a temporal artery revealed giant cell arteritis. Despite treatment with prednisone (60 mg daily) the patient's neurological condition deteriorated, and she succumbed several months later to pneumonia. The case illustrates the pitfalls in the diagnostic approach of elderly patients with multiple pathology and it also emphasizes that in an elderly person with high erythrocyte sedimentation rate (> 100 mm in the first hour) temporal arteritis should be ruled out as soon as possible to prevent further neurological damage.
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PMID:[Clinical thinking and decision making in practice. An elderly patient with vertigo and high sedimentation rate]. 1066 48