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Review
. 2019 Aug;19(4):284-294.
doi: 10.1136/practneurol-2017-001742. Epub 2019 Mar 2.

Autoantibody testing in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies

Anke Rietveld  1 , Johan Lim  2 , Marianne de Visser  2 , Baziel van Engelen  3 , Ger Pruijn  4 , Olivier Benveniste  5 , Anneke van der Kooi  2 , Christiaan Saris  3
Affiliations
Review

Autoantibody testing in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies

Anke Rietveld et al. Pract Neurol. 2019 Aug.

Abstract

The diagnosis and classification of idiopathic inflammatory myopathies are based mainly on clinical and histological features. The discovery of myositis-specific and myositis-associated antibodies has simplified the (sub)classification of inflammatory myopathies. Patients suspected of having an idiopathic inflammatory myopathy should undergo routine antibody testing to gain more insight into distinct phenotypes, comorbidities, treatment response and prognosis. Furthermore, autoantibody testing can help in patients with atypical patterns of weakness or with an unresolved limb-girdle myopathic phenotype, or interstitial lung disease. However, some important technical and methodological issues can hamper the interpretation of antibody testing; for example, some antibodies are not included in the widely available line blots. We aim to provide a practical review of the use of autoantibody testing in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies in clinical practice.

Keywords: incl body myositis; neuroimmunology; neuromuscular; polymyositis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: GP and BvE are inventors of a patent (EP20120740236) licensed to Euroimmun AG, and GP received financial support from Euroimmun for his research programme. BvE reports a grant from Prinses Beatrix Spierfonds and personal fees and non-financial support from Fulcrum, personal fees from Facio, and grants from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Murab), Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw), Global FSH, Stichting Spieren voor Spieren, Dutch FSHD Foundation, and Association Française contre les Myopathies, outside the submitted work. JL and AvdK report grants from CSL Behring for an interventional study, outside the scope of this review. MdV serves as a consultant for Bristol-Myers Squibb. OB serves as a consultant for Novartis, Neovacs and CSL Behring.

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