medwireNews: People with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) may be at increased risk for ischemic stroke, suggest findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Xin Wang (Qingdao Municipal Hospital, China) and team analyzed data from six studies involving 5114 patients with IIM – including dermatomyositis, polymyositis, and sporadic inclusion body myositis – and more than 14 million controls.
As reported in Clinical Rheumatology, people with IIM had a significant 2.41-fold increased risk for ischemic stroke compared with controls. This was attenuated to a 1.47-fold increased risk after two studies with a high risk for bias were excluded, but it was still statistically significant. When the analysis was restricted to patients with dermatomyositis (four studies), these people had a significant 1.49-fold higher stroke risk than controls.
The findings of this meta-analysis are “consistent with previous studies on the risk of ischemic stroke in patients with other [autoimmune rheumatic diseases], such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis,” write the authors.
They conclude: “Although better-quality studies with various subtypes of IIM are needed to verify our results, our findings may support that an appropriate intervention be taken into account for patients with IIM, especially when accompanied with other traditional risk factors of ischemic stroke.”
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Clin Rheumatol 2021; doi:10.1007/s10067-021-05751-2