Panniculitis in adult onset dermatomyositis - Report of two cases and review of the literature

Panniculitis is an exceedingly rarely reported clinical finding in dermatomyositis (DM) with a total of only 18 cases reported in the literature. Although panniculitis sometimes occurs during the course of connective tissue disease, it has most often been associated with lupus erythematosus rather than dermatomyositis. Because the reported cases are few, it is difficult to know the significance of this association. Here we report two additional cases of DM in whom clinically manifest panniculitis developed during the course of disease. Panniculitis can be a cutaneous features of DM and it may be prudent to include DM in the differential diagnosis of lobular panniculitis.