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Objective To assess patients' self-reported glucocorticoid (GC)-related adverse events (AEs) in a GCA population. Methods A questionnaire was sent to the 100 patients most recently diagnosed with GCA in a tertiary centre. This questionnaire included open- and close-ended questions on the disease and GC effects. Eight primary AE areas were analysed: cardiovascular, metabolic, muscle, cognitive and psychologic, bone, cutaneous and hairiness, infective and visual complications. Including derivative subitems from preceding areas, a total of 18 GC-related AEs were analysed separately and according to GC duration. Results Ninety patients were analysed and 89 (99%) reported at least one GC-related AE [median 6 (range 1–11)]. Cognitive and psychological changes, primarily insomnia (72%), affected 90% of patients. Cutaneous changes and muscle loss affected 70% of patients, with frequent impairment of physical autonomy (P  = 0.007) associated with this event. Metabolic issues, especially weight gain (40%) and diabetes mellitus (20%), affected 49% of patients. Conversely, vision troubles and bone fractures were mentioned by 42% and 9% of patients, respectively, and more frequently in patients who received GCs for >18 months (P  = 0.01 and P  = 0.007, respectively). Cardiovascular changes and infections affected 30% and 26% of patients, respectively. Conclusion This real-life study of GC tolerance assessed using a self-evaluation provides pragmatic and updated data reminding us that GC tolerance remains more noteworthy than ever. This study suggests carefully monitoring GC-related AEs during follow-up and encourages GC-sparing strategies in some patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess patients' self-reported glucocorticoid (GC)-related adverse events (AEs) in a GCA population., Methods: A questionnaire was sent to the 100 patients most recently diagnosed with GCA in a tertiary centre. This questionnaire included open- and close-ended questions on the disease and GC effects. Eight primary AE areas were analysed: cardiovascular, metabolic, muscle, cognitive and psychologic, bone, cutaneous and hairiness, infective and visual complications. Including derivative subitems from preceding areas, a total of 18 GC-related AEs were analysed separately and according to GC duration., Results: Ninety patients were analysed and 89 (99%) reported at least one GC-related AE [median 6 (range 1-11)]. Cognitive and psychological changes, primarily insomnia (72%), affected 90% of patients. Cutaneous changes and muscle loss affected 70% of patients, with frequent impairment of physical autonomy (P = 0.007) associated with this event. Metabolic issues, especially weight gain (40%) and diabetes mellitus (20%), affected 49% of patients. Conversely, vision troubles and bone fractures were mentioned by 42% and 9% of patients, respectively, and more frequently in patients who received GCs for >18 months (P = 0.01 and P = 0.007, respectively). Cardiovascular changes and infections affected 30% and 26% of patients, respectively., Conclusion: This real-life study of GC tolerance assessed using a self-evaluation provides pragmatic and updated data reminding us that GC tolerance remains more noteworthy than ever. This study suggests carefully monitoring GC-related AEs during follow-up and encourages GC-sparing strategies in some patients., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Objectives: To estimate the frequency of different clinical patterns in giant-cell arteritis (GCA) at onset., Methods: All GCA patients consecutively followed-up in two referral centers for GCA with a biopsy-proven diagnosis and/or large-vessel vasculitis (LVV) demonstrated on imaging were analysed., Results: We analysed the initial clinical presentation of 693 patients with a median age of 75 [48-94] years and including 486 (70%) women. We identified four different clinical patterns: isolated cranial GCA (in 80%), symptomatic LVV with or without associated cranial signs (9%), isolated fever or inflammatory response (9%), and isolated polymyalgia rheumatica with vasculitis (2%). A silent LVV was found in 110 (45%) out of the 247 patients without large-vessel symptoms who underwent imaging at GCA diagnosis. Symptomatic LVV patients were more frequently GC-dependent compared to other patterns (p=0.03) and showed the longest treatment duration (median: 37 [15-212] months versus <30 months for other clinical phenotypes; p=0.001)., Conclusions: This study suggests that 80% of GCA patients display a typical presentation, whereas the other 20% showed rarer presentations. Patients with symptomatic LVV required longer treatment duration.