[Anti-Jo-1-positive polymyositis with interstitial alveolitis and pericardial effusion. Overview of 3 years treatment].

We describe the case of a 53-year-old woman who developed polymyositis with extramuscular complications: interstitional lung fibrosis, pericarditis and a pericardial effusion, polyarthritis, Raynaud's syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome, sclerodactylia and positive anti-Jo-1-antibodies. We treated her for 3 years. Pericarditis and pericardial effusion with a fibrosing lung alveolitis were the first clinical manifestations of positive Jo-1-syndrome. We stress the patient's serious cardiac disease accompanied by pericardial effusion, which has seldom been described in specialist articles. Steroid treatment induced remission of the disease, but the Jo-1-antibodies did not disappear from the patient's serum.