Challenges in diagnosis and treatment of sporadic inclusion-body myositis

Sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) is a rare yet increasingly prevalent disease and the most common cause of inflammatory myopathy in people over the age of 50. The exact cause of the disorder is unknown. In sIBM 2 processes, first autoimmune and the other degenerative, parallelly occur in the muscle cells. The inflammation aspect is characterized by the cloning of T cells that appear to be driven by specific antigens to invade muscle fibers. The degeneration aspect is characterized by the appearance of holes in the muscle cell vacuoles, deposits of abnormal proteins within the cells and in filamentous inclusions. The disease has a major impact on patients' motor functionality and their quality of life. The treatment of sIBM still remains a major challenge. Early diagnosis of sIBM (already at the histopathology stage), when one still cannot observe fully developed clinical symptoms, may stop help to the progression of the disease.