Clinicians report a large and growing number of cases of autoimmune necrotising myopathy (AINM) in New Zealand:
- 40 new cases of HMGCR autoantibody-positive AINM were diagnosed over a two-year period (2019-2021),
- all were in people aged over 40 who had been exposed to cholesterol-lowering statins,
- the calculated incidence was found to be five times higher in the population of Polynesian origin (Maori or other Pacific peoples) than in the Caucasian or Asian populations of New Zealand.
Despite these eloquent figures, there is no definite proof of a genetic susceptibility to this type of acquired myopathy.
