Inflammatory Myositis

Comprehensive & Expert Care

The goal of the UCLA Health Myositis Program is to provide the highest level of individualized, tailored care to patients with myositis. Patients with suspected or diagnosed myositis, their families and doctors can all benefit from our program, which includes care by a team of experts in these very rare but serious diseases.

What Is Myositis?

Myositis is a general term meaning inflammation in the muscles. More specific types of myositis include dermatomyositis, immune-mediated necrotizing myositis, overlap myositis, polymyositis and inclusion body myositis. These are systemic diseases, which may affect several areas of the body. Some forms of myositis such as amyopathic dermatomyositis can primarily affect the skin (rashes) and lungs (interstitial lung disease) with minimal effects on the muscle tissue. Early recognition and aggressive, comprehensive care is key to achieving disease control and limiting disease complications.

Conditions We Treat

Our expert group evaluate, diagnose and treat many different forms of myositis including:

• Dermatomyositis
• Amyopathic Dermatomyositis
• Anti-synthetase syndrome (myositis + interstitial lung disease)
• Polymyositis
• Immune-mediated necrotizing myositis
• Overlap myositis
• Inclusion body myositis

Further information on these conditions may be found at The Myositis Association.

Our Expert Team

Our expert team includes specialists from many different fields of medicine to meet the needs of patients with myositis who may have systemic involvement of different organ systems beyond the muscle tissue.

The Myositis Program team can also make appropriate referrals to other UCLA Health experts. The UCLA Health Myositis Program only evaluates adult patients (those 18 years and older). For pediatric patients, please visit UCLA Health Pediatric Rheumatology.