Objective: To investigate whether a functional integrin alpha M (ITGAM) variant is involved in susceptibility to and clinical manifestations of giant cell arteritis (GCA).
Methods: A Spanish cohort of 437 white patients with biopsy-proven GCA and 1388 healthy controls were genotyped using the TaqMan allele discrimination technology.
Results: No association was observed between ITGAM rs1143679 and GCA (p = 0.80, OR 0.97). Similarly, subphenotype analyses did not yield significant differences between the case subgroups and the control set or between GCA patients with or without the main specific features of GCA.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that the ITGAM rs1143679 variant does not play an important role in the pathophysiology of GCA.