Abstract
Giant cell arteritis (GCA) or temporal arteritis (TA) is a granulomatous inflammation of medium to large-sized arteries. It may have a diverse presentation. The most common presenting symptoms of GCA are fever, malaise, unilateral headache, jaw claudication, polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) and ophthalmoplegia. Most severe sequelae of GCA could be blindness. We report a case of a 65-year-old Caucasian male who presented for the third time with recurrent episodes of diplopia. Neurologic exam showed bilateral cranial nerve (CN) VI palsy, slightly worse on the right than the left side. Other focal neurological deficits were absent. GCA was considered and biopsy of the temporal artery was performed which showed necrotizing pan-arteritis, consistent with GCA. The patient was empirically treated with intravenous (IV) methylprednisolone while awaiting the biopsy results which resulted in the resolution of the symptoms. As far as we know, this is the second case in the literature about the bilateral sixth CN involvement in the background of GCA.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-22-2018
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.2667
Repository Citation
Lunagariya, Abhishek; Rupareliya, Chintan; Bollu, Pradeep C.; and Mahuwala, Zabeen, "Temporal Arteritis Presenting as an Isolated Bilateral Abducens Nerve Palsy: A Rare Case of a 65-Year-Old Male" (2018). Neurology Faculty Publications. 70.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/neurology_facpub/70
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Cureus, v. 10, issue 5, 2667.
© Copyright 2018 Lunagariya et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 3.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.