Temporal Artery Biopsy

A 81-year-old woman had mild fever, hypersedimentation and occasional left-sided temporal headache. The temporal artery is located with a doppler stethoscope (or by palpation). After a superficial incision with a scalpel, blunt dissection with scissors is used to expose the artery. The artery is typically tortuous and weakly pulsatile. The artery is lifted with a blunt instrument carefully, without causing any damage to it. Both ends are tied using resorbable sutures and the section taken for sample is cut off with a scalpel. The removed section of the artery is fixed with formaldehyde. In this patient the histology was normal.

Temporal Artery Biopsy