title: Dermatomyositis in 132 patients with different clinical subtypes: cutaneous signs, constitutional symptoms and circulating antibodies.
abstract: We retrospectively studied 132 patients with dermatomyositis; 84 had idiopathic, 30 paraneoplastic, 5 juvenile and 13 amyopathic forms of the disease. The commonest features were macular erythema, heliotropic erythema and Gottron's papules. Flagellate erythema occurred in 5% of patients with idiopathic dermatomyositis and correlated with the disease activity. Necrotic lesions were also found in this group of patients but did not always signal malignancy. The prevalence of malignancy was high (23%). Raynaud's phenomenon occurred in 10.6% of patients, also in those with malignancy. Dysphagia, interstitial lung disease and arthralgias affected 20%, 8% and 40% of patients, respectively. Anti-Jo-1 antibodies were found in 5% of patients with idiopathic dermatomyositis and low titre ANA in 1/3 of patients. ANA did not correlate with the disease activity. We confirmed the data from the literature, but no cutaneous sign, constitutional symptom or circulating antibody was found marking a particular subtype of the disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Endocrinological and Metabolic Diseases, University of Genoa, Genova, Italy. rebdermo@unige.it
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Parodi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Caproni
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Marzano
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: De Simone
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: La Placa
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Quaglino
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Veller Fornasa
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zane
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vaccaro
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Papini
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fabbri
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rebora
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003882:Dermatomyositis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D015994:Incidence; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011336:Probability; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D017678:Sex Distribution