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Immune-Mediated Necrotizing Myopathy: Update on Diagnosis and Management

  • Inflammatory Muscle Disease (R Aggarwal, Section Editor)
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Abstract

The idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) comprise a group of autoimmune disorders that target skeletal muscle. They are characterized by typical laboratory and clinical features including muscle weakness, elevated muscle enzymes, characteristic histopathology of muscle biopsies, as well as electromyography abnormalities. The IIMs are divided into polymyositis, dermatomyositis, inclusion body myositis, nonspecific myositis, and immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy (IMNM). IMNM is distinguished by the absence of primary inflammation on muscle biopsy. IMNM may be associated with myositis-specific autoantibodies (i.e., anti-SRP and anti-HMGCR) and malignancy, in association with viral infections (HIV or hepatitis C), or in relation to other connective tissue diseases (i.e., scleroderma). Typical clinical findings such as severe muscle weakness, highly elevated creatine kinase (CK) levels, as well as resistance to conventional immunosuppressive therapy are associated with this subtype of IIM. This review provides an overview of this disease entity and focuses on its diagnosis and treatment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, The University of Western Ontario, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, ON, Canada, N6A 4V2

    Pari Basharat

  2. Johns Hopkins Myositis Center, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 5200 Eastern Avenue, Mason F. Lord Center Tower; Suite 4500, Baltimore, MD, 21224, USA

    Lisa Christopher-Stine

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Correspondence to Lisa Christopher-Stine.

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Conflict of Interest

Dr. Christopher-Stine reports personal fees from Walgreens, Novartis, Idera Pharmaceuticals, Ono Pharma UK, Marathon Pharmaceuticals, MedImmune/Astra Zeneca, and Mallinckrodt. In addition, Dr. Christopher-Stine has a patent HMGCR assay with royalties paid to Inova Diagnostics.

Dr. Basharat reports personal fees as a round-table participant for Novartis and Amgen.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Inflammatory Muscle Disease

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Basharat, P., Christopher-Stine, L. Immune-Mediated Necrotizing Myopathy: Update on Diagnosis and Management. Curr Rheumatol Rep 17, 72 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11926-015-0548-6

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