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REVIEW article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1455867

The Utility of Muscle Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathies: A Scoping Review

Provisionally accepted
Julie J. Paik Julie J. Paik 1*Lisa Christopher-Stine Lisa Christopher-Stine 1Mikael Boesen Mikael Boesen 2,3John A. Carrino John A. Carrino 4S. Peter Eggleton S. Peter Eggleton 5Deborah Denis Deborah Denis 6Olga Kubassova Olga Kubassova 2
  • 1 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
  • 2 Image Analysis Group, London, United Kingdom
  • 3 Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark
  • 4 Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, New York, United States
  • 5 Other, Feltham, United Kingdom
  • 6 EMD Serono (United States), Rockland, Massachusetts, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) are muscle disorders characterized by proximal weakness of the skeletal muscles, inflammation in muscle, and autoimmunity. The classic subgroups in IIMs include dermatomyositis, inclusion body myositis, immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy, and polymyositis (PM). Polymyositis (PM) is increasingly recognized as a rare subtype and often included in overlap myositis, the antisynthetase syndrome when no rash is present, or misdiagnosed inclusion body myositis. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has played an increasingly important role in IIM diagnosis and assessment. Although conventional MRI provides qualitative information that is helpful for diagnosis, its application for the quantitative assessment of disease activity is challenging. Therefore, advanced quantitative MRI techniques have been implemented in the past 10 years to highlight potential new applications of disease monitoring in IIM. The aim of this review is to examine the role of quantitative MRI techniques in evaluating the key imaging features of IIM, mainly muscle edema and muscle damage (fatty replacement and/or muscle atrophy).

    Keywords: dermatomyositis1, idiopathic inflammatory myopathies2, magnetic resonance imaging3, myositis4, polymyositis5

    Received: 27 Jun 2024; Accepted: 02 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Paik, Christopher-Stine, Boesen, Carrino, Eggleton, Denis and Kubassova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Julie J. Paik, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 21218, Maryland, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.