Thigh muscle MRI findings in myopathy associated with anti-mitochondrial antibody

Myopathy associated with anti-mitochondrial antibody (AMA) has recently been characterized as a distinct type of idiopathic inflammatory myopathy. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the pattern of involvement in thigh muscles in AMA myopathy using MRI.

Six patients with AMA myopathy were identified and their muscle MRI findings evaluated.

On thigh muscle MRI, all six patients showed high signal intensity with short-tau inversion recovery that reflected disease activity mostly in the adductor magnus, called a "cuneiform sign." Fatty degeneration was also prominent in the adductor magnus, as well as the semimembranosus muscles.

These characteristic changes on MRI contrast with those of other inflammatory myopathies. From these observations, we concluded that the localization pattern of the inflammatory changes in muscle MRI can contribute to the diagnosis of AMA myopathy.