The idiopathic inflammatory myopathies are chronic autoimmune disorders sharing the clinical symptom of muscle weakness and, in typical cases, inflammatory cell infiltrates in muscle tissue. During the last decade, novel information has accumulated supporting a role of both the innate and adaptive immune systems in myositis and suggesting that different molecular pathways predominate in differe...

experience in treating patients with myositis and are active in research, both clinical and fundamental, about myositis. The Neuromuscular Centre Nijmegen has an extensive collaboration with the departments of rheumatology, dermatology, and internal medicine, and through this collaboration the authors are familiar with the different viewpoints about diagnostic criteria, treatment, etc, for myos...

The computed tomographic (CT) scans of 11 consecutive patients with orbital myositis were reviewed to better characterize the CT appearance of this condition. The findings in this series differed from those of previous reports in several ways. Multiple muscle involvement predominated. Bilateral involvement was more frequent than previously reported. Enlargement of the tendon as well as the musc...

Saeed S, et al. BMJ Case Rep 2017. doi:10.1136/bcr-2017-222041 Description A 44-year-old healthy male presented to the emergency room with a 6-day history of right medial thigh pain and itching. Examination revealed mild erythema with superficial swelling, but no tenderness (figure 1A). Vital signs were stable. White cell count (WBC) was 11.2×10/L with no other significant laboratory abnormalit...

INTRODUCTION The objective was to characterize the clinical and myopathologic features of patients with scleroderma-polymyositis (SSc-PM) overlap compared with a population of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and polymyositis (PM). METHODS A three-way comparison of patients with SSc-PM overlap (n = 25) with patients with SSc (n = 397) and PM (n = 40) on clinical and myopathologic featur...