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. 2023 Feb 22;11(3):658.
doi: 10.3390/biomedicines11030658.

Myositis-Specific and Myositis-Associated Antibodies in Fibromyalgia Patients: A Prospective Study

Gianluca Sambataro  1   2 , Martina Orlandi  3 , Evelina Fagone  2 , Mary Fruciano  2 , Elisa Gili  2 , Alessandro Libra  2 , Stefano Palmucci  4 , Carlo Vancheri  2 , Lorenzo Malatino  5 , Michele Colaci  5 , Domenico Sambataro  1
Affiliations

Myositis-Specific and Myositis-Associated Antibodies in Fibromyalgia Patients: A Prospective Study

Gianluca Sambataro et al. Biomedicines. .

Abstract

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common rheumatologic disorder characterised by widespread muscular pain. Myalgia is also a common clinical feature in Connective Tissue Disease (CTD), and FM should be studied for the concomitant presence of a CTD. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of Myositis-Specific and Myositis-Associated Antibodies (MSA/MAA) in a cohort of FM patients. We enrolled 233 consecutive FM patients (defined according to the 2016 criteria) that did not report clinical signs of autoimmune disorders and followed them for at least one year. The patients were tested for MSA/MAA with immunoblotting. FM patients were seropositive for Antinuclear Antibodies (ANA) in 24% of cases, for MSA in 9%, and for MAA in 6%. A specific diagnosis of CTD was made in 12 patients (5.2%), namely, 5 cases of primary Sjögren's Syndrome and 7 of Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathy. Seropositive patients showed clinical features similar to those who were seronegative at baseline. A CTD diagnosis was associated with ANA positivity (p = 0.03, X2 4.9), the presence of a speckled pattern (p = 0.02, X2 5.3), positivity for MAA (p = 0.004, X2 8.1), and MSA (p = 0.003, X2 9.2). In conclusion, a non-negligible proportion of FM patients may be seropositive for MSA/MAA, and that seropositivity might suggest a diagnosis of CTD.

Keywords: Sjögren’s syndrome; antisynthetase syndrome; dermatomyositis; diagnosis; fibromyalgia; idiopathic inflammatory myopathy; myalgia; myositis-associated antibodies; myositis-specific antibodies; polymyositis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Legend: (A): Proportion of Connective Tissue Disease (CTD) in the whole cohort (reported in proportion); (B): Specific diagnoses made in the patients with an underlying or that developed a CTD in the cohort.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Autoantibody positivity in Fibromyalgia patients diagnosed as having a Connective Tissue Disease Legend: (A,B): seronegative patients; ANA: Antinuclear Antibodies; CTD: Connective Tissue Disease; IIM: Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathy; pSS: primary Sjögren’s Syndrome; RF: Rheumatoid Factor.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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