Coronary artery disease in giant cell arteritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: To investigate the association between giant cell arteritis (GCA) and risk of coronary artery disease (CAD).

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies that reported relative risks, hazard ratios, or standardized incidence ratios with 95% confidence interval comparing CAD risk in patients with GCA versus non-GCA controls. Pooled risk ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated using a random-effect, generic inverse variance of DerSimonian and Laird.

Result: Six studies with 10,868 patients with GCA and 245,323 controls were identified and included in our data analysis. The pooled risk ratio of CAD in patients with GCA was 1.51 and did not achieve statistical significance (95% CI: 0.88-2.61). The statistical heterogeneity was high with an I(2) of 97%.

Conclusion: In contrast to other chronic systemic inflammatory disorders, our meta-analysis did not show any statistically significant increased risk of CAD among patients with GCA.