Paraspinal and scapular myopathy associated with scleroderma.

Objective: To describe a form of inflammatory myopathy with prominent involvement of the paraspinal and scapular muscles in patients with scleroderma.

Methods: Review of clinical records, laboratory investigations, and muscle biopsies.

Results: Patients presented with a "dropped head" resulting from weakness of the posterior cervical muscles (three cases) or camptocormia ("bent spine") resulting from weakness of the paraspinal muscles (two cases) and variable weakness and atrophy of shoulder girdle muscles with mild or absent pelvic girdle involvement.

Inflammatory myopathies: clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic aspects.

The three major forms of immune-mediated inflammatory myopathy are dermatomyositis (DM), polymyositis (PM), and inclusion-body myositis (IBM). They each have distinctive clinical and histopathologic features that allow the clinician to reach a specific diagnosis in most cases. Magnetic resonance imaging is sometimes helpful, particularly if the diagnosis of IBM is suspected but has not been formally evaluated.

Seasonal occurrence of relapses in inflammatory myopathies: a preliminary study.

The seasonal occurrence of relapses was analysed retrospectively in a group of 53 patients with treated dermatomyositis (DM) or polymyositis (PM). In DM, the incidence of both myositic and cutaneous relapses was highest in summer whereas in the PM group relapses was more evenly distributed throughout the seasons but lowest in summer. The present findings suggest that environmental factors such as intercurrent infections and light exposure may be involved in reactivating the disease process and causing relapses in DM but less so in PM.