The term myositis is often misused as a synonym of myalgia, but this should never occur because myositis is a different pathological process.
Myalgia is, in fact, a term for generic muscle pain and, although it is true that it is also present in myositis, is not its only peculiarity.
Myositis predominantly affects striated muscle, and only minimally involves the cardiac muscle.
There are also other forms of myositis that contribute to congenital or acquired torticollis.
Interstitial myositis, consisting of fibrous degeneration of muscle tissue, may involve the sternocleidomastoid muscle and be a contributing factor to torticollis: in fact,it seems that an extravasation of serum, allows the proliferation of connective tissue elements between the muscle fibers that subsequently causes the muscle contraction.
There is also an inflammatory form, based on the hypothesis that traumatic events occurring especially during fetal life, may result in the formation of an area of weakened resistance where an infection could set in and ultimately cause the muscle contraction.
Laboratory exams show an increase serum level of muscular enzymes, as well as important diagnostic electromyographic abnormalities.
Corticosteroids, including prednisone and immunosuppressive therapy, help in eliminate, or at least mitigate, the disease.
LUCA GABRIELE PUNZIANO
Luca Gabriele Punziano General Practitioner Specializing in Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, Umberto I Rome, Italy
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The term myositis is often misused as a synonym of myalgia, but this should never occur because myositis is a different pathological process. 
Until a few years ago the only information that doctors utilized from the sequences of heartbeats (R-R) was only their average for shorter or longer intervals. The heart rate was related to macroscopic states such as fatigue, fever, emotion etc…
Much of the information, represented by the R-R interval, was therefore unused, and two key aspects were overlooked: the RR intervals are not all...
The spectral analysis of RR interval variability enables the identification of oscillatory components hidden in it, the sum of which is the total Heart Rate Variability (HRV). This type of analysis allows the bundling of oscillations in heart rate in two main frequency bands: a low frequency band, known as LF (Low Frequency), about 0.10 Hz correlated with the sympathetic nerve activity, and a...
Most people think that Glaucoma is almost exclusively a single disease. To the contrary, glaucoma is not considered a single disease, but a diverse group of pathologies that share a chronic and progressive damage to the optic nerve and to the retinal nerve fiber layer.
These diseases are important because the damage they cause is irreversible and set in silently, until they manifest their...
Summary
In recent years, studies with stress cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cardiac stress MRI) reported good feasibility and accuracy in the characterization of patients with known, or suspected, coronary artery disease. This article presents an overview of the important data for the application of the techniques of stress-MRI in the diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of ischemic heart...
Colorectal tumors are the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States and represent a major threat in Italy, but, fortunately, good screening can yield a survival of 90 percent for cancer of the colon, and 80 percent for cancer of the rectum.
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