Coxsackievirus infection and the development of polymyositis/dermatomyositis.

Recently, it has been suggested that coxsackievirus plays an etiologic role in juvenile dermatomyositis (DM). Neutralizing antibodies to 12 coxsackievirus antigens were measured in the sera of four clinical subsets of patients with adult polymyositis (PM)/DM. Elevated antibody titers to coxsackievirus A7, B3, and B4 were detected in patients with adult PM, adult DM, and adult PM/DM with malignancy, respectively. The development of these three subsets of idiopathic inflammatory myopathies may be related to infection with specific coxsackievirus serotypes.