EULAR Updates Guidelines for Large Vessel Vasculitis

The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) has updated treatment guidelines for the management of large vessel vasculitis (LVV).The guidelines, which were last updated in 2008, incorporate findings from the results of newly published randomized clinical trials. When left untreated,  large vessel vasculitis could lead to more serious complications, such as giant cell arteritis-related blindness, vascular stenosis, aortic aneurysm or Takayasu arteritis (TAK).The updated guidelines were published online first July 3 in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases."While the majority of the original recommendations addressed large vessel vasculitis in general, new data allowed us to offer separate recommendations for giant cell and Takayasu arteritis at least for some key areas of management," wrote the authors who were led by Bernhard Hellmich, M.D., of the University of Tübingen, Germany.There remains a need for more research and more high quality data to guide treatment in this arena. For example, the guidelines task force could only address giant cell arteritis disease subsets with only cranial, extracranial or cranial plus extracranial arteritis due to the lack of high-quality evidence to guide the treatment of disease subtypes. As a result, the recommendations for GCA treatment refer to all subtypes of GCA.Among changes for 2019, include treatment recommendations for early diagnosis, multidisciplinary management and relapse treatment. And, the task force no longer recommends the routine use of antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy unless it is indicated for other reasons. Learn more about the updated guidelines in this slideshow.Source:  Hellmich B, Agueda A, Monti S, et al. "2018 Update of the EULAR recommendations for the management of large vessel vasculitis." Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. Published Online First: 03 July 2019. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2019-215672