Clinical and laboratory characteristics of idiopathic inflammatory myositis in Saudi patients: A retrospective study in a single tertiary centre.

Abstract

Idiopathic inflammatory myositis (IIM) in Saudi patients has been poorly studied owing to the lack of available data. This study aimed to identify the clinical and laboratory features of patients at a single tertiary care center. This retrospective study reviewed the medical records of Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to collect clinical and laboratory data between December 2022 and February 2017 as follows: age at disease onset, gender, follow-up duration and disease duration; clinical symptoms; laboratory result; presence and type of myositis-specific autoantibody or myositis-associated autoantibody; and type of immunosuppression, presence of malignancy, disease course, and outcome. There were 26 patients with a mean age of 36.16±13.48, and 84.6% were women. The most prevalent form of IIM was dermatomyositis (n=16, 61.5%), and the most affected organ was the skin. weakness was observed in 25 patients (96.2%), and dysphagia was the most common alarm sign (n=10, 38.5%). During follow-up, the creatine kinase level was elevated at the beginning of the disease and then decreased following treatment, with a mean of 277.73 IU/L. Of the total patients, 17 (68%) were positive for anti-nuclear antibody and 5 (19.2%) were positive for anti-Jo-1. In our patients, dermatomyositis was the most common form of myositis, and skin manifestations were the most prevalent clinical characteristics. None of the patients developed a malignancy or died.