Case report

Dermatomyositis and supraventricular tachycardia

Abhijeet Dhoble^*, Chethan Puttarajappa and Alan Neiberg

• * Corresponding author: Abhijeet Dhoble abhijeetdhoble@gmail.com

Author Affiliations

Department of Internal Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

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International Archives of Medicine 2008, 1:25 doi:10.1186/1755-7682-1-25

Published: 13 November 2008

Abstract

Background

Dermatomyositis is an idiopathic inflammatory myopathy, often associated with an underlying malignancy. Its prevalence rate is approximately one per 100,000 in the general population, and is even rarer without evidence of a cancer. Dermatomyositis rarely involves myocardial muscle fibers, but has shown to be associated with cardiac arrhythmias.

Case Presentation

We present a case of a young female patient with known history of dermatomyositis who presented to hospital with a flare up of her disease. She also complained of paroxysms of palpitation. Telemetry monitoring revealed several episodes of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia with heart rate reaching up to 220 beats per minute.

Conclusion

Cardiac involvement in dermatomyositis is a very rare, but well known entity. Dermatomyositis patients with palpitations should be monitored on a Holter monitor, and appropriate therapy initiated if found to have a significant arrhythmia.