Polymyositis is a nonsuppurating inflammatory disease of the striated muscle characterized clinically by the presence of proximal muscular weakness that is sometimes associated with pain. 1 This disease falls within a broader category known as idiopathic inflammatory myopathy, which includes the forms of myositis that are secondary to connective tissue disease and neoplasms and myositis with in...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of the anti-U5 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP) antibody in patients with systemic sclerosis. METHODS Sera from 281 patients with systemic sclerosis, including 10 patients with overlapping polymyositis, were assayed using RNA immunoprecipitation and protein immunoprecipitation. RESULTS Only one serum sample showed precipitation of U5 snRNA with s...

Sir: The weakness in polymyositis is usually described as symmetrical and mainly proximal. Bharucha and Morgan-Hughes' mentioned four patients with chronic focal polymyositis, in whom highly selective muscle wasting and weakness remained confined to the forearm flexors, brachio radialis and quadriceps muscles. We would like to report a patient presenting with chronic bulbar palsy. In April, 198...

A dispute has erupted over the diagnostic criteria for polymyositis, a disorder characterised by progressive muscle weakness and the presence of inflammatory infiltrates in skeletal muscle tissue that could leave many myositis patients diagnostically adrift and excluded from receiving potentially effective treatment. It might also lead to the results of clinical studies performed by one special...