Principal Investigator:
Sonia Kamath, MD
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC)
Overview:
Juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) is a rare autoimmune disease, causing muscle weakness and rash. The skin findings are variable and are crucial to establishing the diagnosis, as they often occur months or years prior to muscle weakness. Some children have a classic rash affecting the eyelids and knuckles, while others have less common findings, such as scalp rash. To better understand the skin disease in JDM, we propose to evaluate the spectrum of initial skin findings. We will conduct a multi-center, retrospective review of children diagnosed with JDM to determine the prevalence of skin findings at initial presentation, whether the presenting skin findings can help identify patients who develop muscle disease, and whether skin findings vary by race/ethnicity. Our findings will inform future prospective studies to define distinct presentations of JDM, characterize long-term disease outcomes, and improve treatment approaches for JDM.
Status:
This project was funded by a 2020 PeDRA Research Grant.