Giant cell arteritis and secondary amyloidosis: the natural history

Giant cell (temporal) arteritis (GCA) may be a cause of fever of unknown or igin (FUO) in elderly patients. The development of secondary (reactive) amy loidosis is an unusual complication of the disease, we describe a 65-year-o ld male patient who was hospitalized in our hospital with FUO and was diagn osed as having GCA 5 years later. At that time, he also had a nephrotic syn drome and secondary amyloidosis (AA-type). He died due to end-stage renal f ailure. The probable explanation for the development of this rare complicat ion might be the late diagnosis of this chronic inflammatory disease, which was left untreated for a long period of time.