Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical sciences and Technology ...

CONCLUSION1. Clinical, elctrophysiological and histopathological correlation was seen 62% cases.2. Majority of the cases were poly myositis (51%) followed by dermatomyositis &overlap syndrome with other connective tissue disorders (20% each)3. Female sex constituted roughly 2/3rd of cases. Predominant age group affected wasbetween 3rd to 5th decades.4. Roughly half of the patients had subjective pain and l/4 1 h had muscle tenderness.Majority of the patients with muscle tenderness had dermatomyositis.5. Predominantly affected muscle group were limb girdle musculature .70% patients hadneck muscle weakness & l/3r~ had bulbar weakness6. Serum creatinine phosphokinase was elevated in majority of cases and elevation morethan 1000 lUlL occurred in just more than half of cases .It was normal in only 11 %cases.7. Classical electromyography & biopsy findings were seen only in 2/3rd cases.8. Majority of the patients tolerated oral steroids well. Mean follow up period was 7.8years.9.2/3rd of cases had excellent outcome out of 72 cases where final follow up wasavailable. 50% remained asymptomatic for more than 2 years in spite of stopping alldrugs .20% had partial improvement with treatment.10. Relapse rate was 25% and half of them had relapsed due to premature with drawl ofthe drug.ll.There was no statistically significant correlation between any of the clinical orinvestigation parameters with the final outcome. However there was positive trend forgood prognosis with early age of onset, early presentation & ambulation at the time ofevaluation.35