Clinical Trial Finder

Inclusion Criteria:

• - duration of weakness >12 months.

• - ages 18 to 80 years old.

• - serum CK level no greater than 15 times the upper limit of normal.

• - quadriceps weakness >hip flexor weakness and/or finger flexor weakness >shoulder abduction weakness.

• - one or more of the following pathological findings: - endomysial inflammatory infiltrate.

• - rimmed vacuoles.

• - protein accumulation or 15-18 mm filaments.

DM/PM

inclusion criteria:

• - ages 18 to 80.

• - Symmetric proximal weakness.

• - Elevated CK.

• - EMG suggestive of myopathy with evidence of muscle membrane irritation.

• - Muscle biopsy suggestive of inflammatory myositis (degeneration, regeneration, necrosis, and interstitial mononuclear infiltrates) - Typical skin rashes of DM (Heliotrope rash or Gottron sign) Key inclusion criteria for the control group: - no active neuromuscular disorders or known history of neuromuscular disorders.

• - no sign or symptoms of muscle weakness.

• - no family history of muscular dystrophies or ALS.

• - ages 18 to 80.

Exclusion Criteria:

• - Patients with decompensated congestive heart failure.

• - Patients with chronic kidney disease on hemodialysis.

• - Patients with active cancer on chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

- Patients with severe disease who are already wheel chair bound

1. To assess changes in impedance parameters in Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathies (IIMs) There are structural and compositional changes in muscles, such as edema, adipose infiltration, and/or atrophy, in IIMs. Electrical impedance myography (EIM) is sensitive to such changes. EIM parameters will be different when compared to healthy controls in IIMs. 2. To assess whether EIM parameters are reflective of disease severity, based on clinical outcome measures of IIMs. Clinical outcome measures reflect on disease severity which is an indirect measure of muscle involvement in IIMs. If EIM parameters correlate with clinical outcome measure, it would indirectly prove that EIM can reflect disease severity in IIMs

Arms

Experimental: Inclusion Body Myositis patients

Subjects with clinically or clinico-pathologically defined IBM will be included in this study. Patients with consistent clinical and laboratory features including ages 18 to 80 years, duration of symptoms> 12 months, serum creatine kinases (CK) no greater than 15 times upper limit of normal, prominent weakness of quadriceps and/or finger flexor weakness>shoulder abduction weakness along with some characteristic histopathological findings of endomysial inflammatory infiltrate, rimmed vacuoles and protein accumulation or 15-18 nm filaments will be considered as clinically or clinicopathologically defined IBM as proposed by the European Neuromuscular Center (ENMC IBM working group, 2013).

Experimental: Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathies patients

Subjects with more than 2 of the following criteria, symmetric proximal weakness, elevated CK, electromyography (EMG) suggesting myositis, muscles biopsy showing inflammatory changes, and typical skin rashes of dermatomyositis (DM) will be recruited as dermatomyositis and polymyositis (DM/PM) based on Bohan and Peter criteria.

Placebo Comparator: control

Healthy controls without any known neuromuscular disorders and no family history of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) will be recruited for the study.

Interventions

Device: - electrical impedance myography

Electrical impedance myography (EIM) is a new electrodiagnostic method of quantitative muscle evaluation. It utilizes concepts of bio impedance, the ability of biological tissue to impede externally applied electrical current.

Other: - healthy control group

healthy control