Does Juvenile Temporal Arteritis Exist?-Reply

Abstract

If by arteritis is meant inflammation of an artery , 1 then it is correct, semantically, to refer to any form of inflammation of the temporal artery as temporal arteritis . The condition first described by us was an inflammatory lesion of the temporal arteries, though it differed from the classic temporal arteritis (more correctly, granulomatous giant cell arteritis of the temporal artery occurring almost exclusively in the aged) both clinically and histopathologically. The qualifying word was used in our communication to avoid confusion with the well known entity of (granulomatous giant cell) temporal arteritis (of the aged), since our four patients were two young adults and two children. To us, juvenile temporal arteritis does not mean the occurrence of the classic (granulomatous giant cell) temporal arteritis occurring in young adults or children, but quite a separate and distinct clinicopathologic entity. Should the peculiar inflammatory lesion of the temporal