Australian and Swedish researchers have studied the immunological profile of patients with normal inflammatory myopathies (274) or scleroderma (174) and compared them with those of 100 control participants. The presence of autoantibodies directed against FHL1, a protein with four and a half LIM domains, already implicated in an X-linked hereditary myopathy, was more specifically sought.
- 13.8% of patients with myositis had positive anti-FHL1 antibodies, while three-quarters of them had no specific myositis antibodies.
- 7% of scleroderma patients also had positive serology, raising the question of the specificity of this finding.
