Clinical evaluation of adverse outcomes in patients diagnosed with healing/healed arteritis on temporal artery biopsy

Temporal artery biopsy (TAB) is regarded as the gold standard investigation for confirming the clinical diagnosis of giant cell arteritis (GCA). Healing or healed arterial injury (HH) has been shown through serological markers to represent an intermediate between GCA-positive and GCA-negative TAB. The clinical outcomes of HH, however, have yet to be elucidated. The purpose of this study was to compare the rates of GCA-related adverse events in patients with an initial TAB diagnosis of HH to those with GCA-positive and GCA-negative diagnoses