Albayda et al. describes a North American cohort of patients with dermatomyositis, reporting that small ubiquitin-like modifier activating enzyme (SAE) autoantibodies are clearly associated with this clinical disease. Patients with this clinical phenotype most commonly present with a rash first, followed by muscle involvement.
The FDA has granted a seven-year marketing exclusivity for Octagam 10%, a 10% solution of a human intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) that treats adults with dermatomyositis.
In July, the FDA approved the use of Octagam 10%, an intravenous immunoglobulin solution, to treat dermatomyositis in adults after an international study demonstrated the treatment’s safety and efficacy.
(Reuters Health)—Young and middle-aged adults with polymyositis-dermatomyositis are more likely to have arrhythmias in general, and supraventricular arrhythmias in particular, than matched controls without these rare rheumatic conditions, a U.S. study suggests.1 Researchers examined retrospective data on adults hospitalized between 2016 and 2018, including 32,085 patients with polymyositis-dermatomyositis and 320,850 age-matched controls. Overall, both women…
Clinically amyopathic dermatomyositis (CADM), a rare subset of dermatomyositis (DM), is an autoimmune disease characterized by cutaneous findings of typical DM without evidence of myositis. Childhood presentation of CADM is rare, and not many studies describe the epidemiology of juvenile CADM.1,2 Although lung disease is rare among patients with juvenile DM, a few reports have…
The idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) encompass eight categories: 1) dermatomyositis (DM) in adults, 2) juvenile dermatomyositis, 3) amyopathic DM, 4) cancer-associated DM, 5) polymyositis, 6) immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy, 7) inclusion body myositis, and 8) overlap myositis.1 These categories help classify the myopathies based on clinical and histologic features. The incidence of IIM is estimated at…
Since it was first reported in 1916, a correlation between inflammatory myopathies and cancer has been noted in several studies. Population studies have confirmed this relationship, and the phrase cancer-associated myopathy has entered the vernacular. Over the past decade, research efforts have shifted toward revealing associations between autoantibodies and clinical phenotypes. One subset of auto-antigens…
AMSTERDAM—Research in myositis treatments is beginning to find its way, with investigators pursuing avenues special to the disease so therapy for patients may no longer involve piggybacking on existing treatments for other illnesses, an expert said at EULAR: the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology. “Finally, in myositis there are targets being investigated that are more…
The Presentation A pale, quiet woman—her mother—wheeled the girl into my clinic. It was a blistering Florida day, and the girl was shivering. She glanced up at me when I said hello and asked her name. “Hi,” she said, giving me a broad smile. Her smile was the only broad thing about her. Her elbows…
In recent years, scientists and clinicians have learned a great deal about autoantibodies occurring in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs). These new discoveries have reshaped our understanding of distinct clinical phenotypes in IIMs. Scientists continue to learn more about how these autoantibodies shape pathophysiology, diagnosis, disease monitoring, prognosis and optimum treatment. Moving forward, these autoantibodies will…