TY - JOUR T1 - Sustained Remission: An Unmet Need in Patients with Giant-cell Arteritis JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 1081 LP - 1082 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.150534 VL - 42 IS - 7 AU - MARIA C. CID AU - MARCO A. ALBA Y1 - 2015/07/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/42/7/1081.abstract N2 - Giant-cell arteritis (GCA) has been considered a paradigm of glucocorticoid-responsive disease because the majority of patients experience substantial relief of their symptoms with high-dose glucocorticoids (GC). However, GC may not completely suppress crucial immunopathogenic pathways, eventually leading to disease recurrence1,2. GCA has been largely recognized as a relapsing disease. However, many unanswered questions about relapses have been only infrequently addressed in the literature and await better characterization.To begin with, there is no consensus definition of relapse. In the majority of randomized controlled trials of GC-sparing agents, relapse, which is the essence of the primary endpoint, is defined by reappearance of specified GCA-related symptoms3,4,5,6. In some, but not in all of them, a concomitant increase in serum acute-phase reactants [usually erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or C-reactive protein (CRP)] is required. However, reappearance of GCA-related clinical features has not always been mandatory and, in other studies, although establishing a precise threshold may be difficult and somehow arbitrary, isolated increases in acute-phase reactants are also considered disease flares7,8. In other reports, relapses rely on the judgment of treating physicians, … Address correspondence to Dr. M.C. Cid, Department of Autoimmune Diseases, Hospital Clínic, Villarroel 170, 08036-Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: mccid{at}clinic.ub.es ER -