An American team retrospectively studied the clinical and biological data of ten patients with a non-genetic form of muscle rippling. Rippling is a spontaneous or percussion-induced, painless waving phenomenon visible on the surface of the muscle. From this study, it appears that :
- the disorders were, in most cases, of late onset;
- a specific autoantibody against cavin-4 was present in eight of the ten people studied;
- this autoantibody was not found in a control group of 241 healthy or ill individuals
- muscle biopsy shows a mosaic pattern of cavin-4;
- patients who are seropositive for this autoantibody appear to respond better to immunotherapy.
