IRB: IRB00117860
Purpose of Study: We will require blood samples (5 tablespoons) from people with dermatomyositis to investigate markers for cancer as part of research in the Division of Rheumatology
Eligibility Criteria:
- Must be at least 18 years of age
- Diagnosis of dermatomyositis
- Symptoms started within the past year
Study Status:
Recruiting
Principal Investigator:
Lisa Christopher-Stine, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine
Dr. Christopher-Stine is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Neurology and the Director and Co-Founder of the Johns Hopkins Myositis Center, a multidisciplinary clinic formally established in 2007. She joined the faculty of the Division of Rheumatology at The Johns Hopkins University in 2003. Her clinical research focus is the longitudinal clinical outcomes, phenotyping, and autoantibody associations and predictors in the idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (“myositis”). She has authored or co-authored over 100 publications. Dr. Christopher-Stine and her colleagues discovered that some statin-related myopathies are, in fact, autoimmune in nature and are associated with a specific autoantibody, anti-HMGCR.. As a clinician scientist, she utilizes the Myositis Database developed by her and her colleagues for which she is the Principal Investigator, currently numbering well over 2500 patients recruited worldwide. She was a 2018-2019 United States Myositis Association Grant Awardee for her project “ “The gut and skin microbiota in patients with DM.” Dr. Christopher-Stine will explore the significance of the microbiome in myositis patients by identifying organisms commonly occurring in dermatomyositis patients. She also has a strong interest in patient-reported outcomes and she is the co-chair of an international effort through the OMERACT organization to develop a novel patient reported outcome measure.
