Incidence of irritable electromyography in XXXX .

@entity1 @entity121 @entity5442
Needle electromyography (EMG) findings in @entity1 with @entity121 can be classified as "irritable" or "non-irritable," depending on the presence or absence of "abnormal spontaneous activity" in the form of fibrillation potentials, positive sharp waves, or complex, repetitive discharges. An irritable @entity121 suggests either an active necrotizing @entity121 and/or unstable muscle membrane potential. Although inflammatory @entity121 are traditionally considered to show irritable myopathic changes on EMG, the precise incidence of these changes is not known. We retrospectively reviewed the EMG findings in 178 consecutive @entity1 with biopsy-confirmed @entity121 . @entity5442 was defined on the basis of biopsy findings combined with clinical features. Needle EMG showed "irritable" @entity121 in 66% of the @entity1 in the inflammatory histology myopathic group and in 30% @entity1 with non-inflammatory histology (p <0.00l). Overall, irritable EMG findings predicted an inflammatory histology in only 44% of @entity1 . The degree and distribution of irritability on EMG did not improve the probability of finding @entity5442 . By the same token, non-irritable EMG findings also did not exclude inflammatory histology. We conclude that irritable @entity121 on EMG as defined above is not very sensitive and not very specific for predicting an inflammatory histology.
