Consensus statement on the processing, interpretation and reporting of temporal artery biopsy for arteritis

Vidhya Nair; Gregory A Fishbein; Robert Padera; Michael A Seidman; Mathieu Castonguay; Charles Leduc; Carmela D Tan; E Rene Rodriguez; Joseph J Maleszewski; Dylan Miller; Maria Romero; Jon Lomasney; Giulia d'Amati; Monica De Gaspari; Stefania Rizzo; Annalisa Angelini; Cristina Basso; Silvio Litovsky; Louis Maximilian Buja; James R Stone; John P Veinot

doi:10.1016/j.carpath.2023.107574

Consensus statement on the processing, interpretation and reporting of temporal artery biopsy for arteritis

Cardiovasc Pathol. 2023 Nov-Dec:67:107574. doi: 10.1016/j.carpath.2023.107574. Epub 2023 Sep 6.

Authors

Vidhya Nair¹, Gregory A Fishbein², Robert Padera³, Michael A Seidman⁴, Mathieu Castonguay⁵, Charles Leduc⁶, Carmela D Tan⁷, E Rene Rodriguez⁷, Joseph J Maleszewski⁸, Dylan Miller⁹, Maria Romero¹⁰, Jon Lomasney¹¹, Giulia d'Amati¹², Monica De Gaspari¹³, Stefania Rizzo¹³, Annalisa Angelini¹³, Cristina Basso¹³, Silvio Litovsky¹⁴, Louis Maximilian Buja¹⁵, James R Stone¹⁶, John P Veinot¹⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: vinair@toh.ca.
² Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ Laboratory Medicine Program, University Health Network, and Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵ Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
⁶ Department of Pathology and Cellular Biology, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁷ Department of Pathology, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
⁸ Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
⁹ Intermountain Central Laboratory, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
¹⁰ Servicio de Digestivo, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain.
¹¹ Department of Pathology, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA.
¹² Department of Radiological, Oncological and Pathological Sciences, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.
¹³ Cardiovascular Pathology, Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences and Public Health, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
¹⁴ Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

PMID: 37683739
DOI: 10.1016/j.carpath.2023.107574

Abstract

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is the most common systemic vasculitis in adults in Europe and North America, typically involving the extra-cranial branches of the carotid arteries and the thoracic aorta. Despite advances in noninvasive imaging, temporal artery biopsy (TAB) remains the gold standard for establishing a GCA diagnosis. The processing of TAB depends largely on individual institutional protocol, and the interpretation and reporting practices vary among pathologists. To address this lack of uniformity, the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology formed a committee tasked with establishing consensus guidelines for the processing, interpretation, and reporting of TAB specimens, based on the existing literature. This consensus statement includes a discussion of the differential diagnoses including other forms of arteritis and noninflammatory changes of the temporal artery.

Keywords: Active arteritis; Giant cell arteritis; Healed arteritis; Healing arterial injury; Temporal arteritis; Temporal artery biopsy.