Home > Encyclopedia of Neurological Disorders > Inflammatory Myopathy

Definition

Inflammatory myopathy is a term that defines a group of muscle diseases involving inflammation and degeneration of skeletal muscle tissues. They are thought to be autoimmune disorders. In inflammatory myopathies, inflammatory cells surround, invade, and destroy normal muscle fibers as though they were defective or foreign to the body. This eventually results in discernible muscle weakness. This muscle weakness is usually symmetrical and develops slowly over weeks to months or even years.

When using the term inflammatory myopathy, one is actually considering three separate disease entities, namely dermatomyositis (DM), polymyositis (PM), and