Purpose: To define sonographic signs of arteritis temporalis using color coded duplex sonography.
Methods: 20 patients with clinically suspected temporal arteritis were examined with color coded Doppler ultrasound prior to temporalis biopsy. The investigation included the temporal artery on both sides and documentation was performed with color prints of the longitudinal orientation of both temporal arteries. All patients had an unilateral biopsy of the temporal artery.
Results: 6/20 patients had histologically confirmed temporal arteritis. All patients showed a paravasal zone of lower echogenicity (halo-sign) along the temporal artery. 12/14 patients without temporal arteritis showed no halo-sign. However, a halo-sign was found in 2/14 patients without temporal arteritis which could not be distinguished from the halo-sign observed in patients with temporal arteritis.
Conclusions: A halo-sign could be detected in the majority of patients with arteritis temporalis in concordance with the recent published findings of Schmidt et al. However, a definite specificity of this halo-sign must be rejected.