Dermatomyositis: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, an initiator or a trigger?

Abstract

Dermatomyositis is an immune-mediated inflammatory myopathy. In adults, the common triggering factors for its onset include viral infections, malignancy, and drugs. The clinical manifestation of these group of disorders may be cutaneous, neurological, pulmonary, or a combination of all. The cutaneous manifestations are helpful in the early clinical diagnosis. The detection of myositis-specific autoantibodies serves as specific biomarkers for the diagnosis and helps in predicting the prognosis. We are presenting two cases of dermatomyositis, temporally related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection and vaccination.