Calcinosis in dermatomyositis; observations on course of disease in children and adults.

Abstract

Dermatomyositis is a disease of various cutaneous manifestations associated with an unpredictable degree of nonsuppurative polymyositis. Involvement of the skeletal muscles is always a factor and is responsible for the varying degrees of disability. The characteristic and unusual features of this disease have been described elsewhere.1-4Important among these is calcinosis cutis. As a result of our recent review of calcinosis in scleroderma,5 we decided to extend these investigations to include dermatomyositis. It was our purpose to examine the relationship of calcinosis to prognosis in dermatomyositis as well as to contrast its pattern of occurrence to that in scleroderma. From the records of approximately 260 patients seen at the Mayo Clinic from 1945 to 1955 with the diagnosis of dermatomyositis, sclerodermatomyositis, poikilodermatomyositis, and polymyositis, we selected 182 as representative of classic dermatomyositis; we rejected any case in which clinical and laboratory features