Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 21, 2022; 28(7): 755-762
Published online Feb 21, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i7.755
Crohn’s disease-related ‘gastrocnemius myalgia syndrome’ successfully treated with infliximab: A case report
Julien Catherine, Hazim Kadhim, Frédéric Lambot, Claire Liefferinckx, Virginie Meurant, Lukas Otero Sanchez
Julien Catherine, Institute for Medical Immunology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Gosselies 6041, Belgium
Julien Catherine, Department of Internal Medicine, C.U.B. Hôpital Erasme, Brussels 1070, Belgium
Hazim Kadhim, NeuroMyopathology Unit (Anatomic Pathology Service) and Reference Center for Neuromuscular Pathology, CHU Brugmann, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels 1020, Belgium
Frédéric Lambot, Department of Internal Medicine, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Tivoli, La Louvière 7100, Belgium
Claire Liefferinckx, Lukas Otero Sanchez, Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatopancreatology and Digestive Oncology, C.U.B. Hôpital Erasme, Brussels 1070, Belgium
Claire Liefferinckx, Lukas Otero Sanchez, Laboratory of Experimental Gastroenterology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels 1070, Belgium
Virginie Meurant, Department of Emergency Medicine, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Tivoli, La Louvière 7100, Belgium
Author contributions: Lambot F, Catherine J and Otero Sanchez L managed the patient; Kadhim H did myopathology diagnosis and analyses; Catherine J, Otero Sanchez L and Meurant V designed the study and collected data; Catherine J and Otero Sanchez L drafted and wrote the manuscript; Liefferinckx C, Lambot F and Kadhim H provided their expertise throughout the course of the work by revising and editing the manuscript; all authors approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Supported by National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S-FNRS) as research fellows to Catherine J and Otero Sanchez L; Fonds Erasme to Otero Sanchez L; and F.R.S-FNRS as postdoctoral fellow to Liefferinckx C.
Informed consent statement: The study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration and was approved by the institutional review board of CHU Tivoli (approval number #1396). Patient’s informed consent was obtained by Meurant V.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Liefferinckx C received consultancy fees from Takeda and Galapagos; speaker fees from Sandoz, Janssen and AbbVie.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Julien Catherine, MD, Medical Assistant, Research Fellow, Institute for Medical Immunology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Adrienne Boland 8, Gosselies 6041, Belgium. julien.catherine@ulb.be
Received: September 30, 2021
Peer-review started: September 30, 2021
First decision: December 4, 2021
Revised: December 13, 2021
Accepted: January 19, 2022
Article in press: January 19, 2022
Published online: February 21, 2022
Processing time: 139 Days and 20.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Inflammatory myopathies are scarce in the setting of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and could be wrongly attributed to IBD-related osteoarticular manifestations or to medications’ side effects. This case describes a very atypical presentation of myositis restricted to the legs called the ‘gastrocnemius myalgia syndrome’, an entity only described during Crohn’s disease. Its restricted location to the legs as well as normal creatine kinase levels in serum reflecting a predominant interstitial immune reaction are key characteristics in reported cases. Although corticosteroids are often used as first-line therapy, cortico-dependence is not rare and anti-tumour necrosis factor-α agents might represent an effective therapeutic option.