Useful For

• The presence of anti-Jo-1 antibodies, in conjunction with clinical findings and other laboratory tests, is an aid in the diagnosis of idiopathic inflammatory myopathy.

• Autoantibodies to Jo-1 antigen are found in patients with polymyositis, dermatomyositis or myositis overlap syndromes.

• The prevalence of antibodies to Jo-1 has been reported by the literature to be between 12-20% in myositis patients.

• The antibody is more common in polymyositis than dermatomyositis and rarely found in other disease states.

• Antibodies to Jo-1 are strongly associated with interstitial lung disease with nearly all Jo-1 positive patients showing evidence of lung involvement. Therefore, anti-Jo-1 antibodies have been described as the major autoantibody found in patients with anti-synthetase syndrome which is characterized by varying degrees of interstitial lung disease, myositis, arthropathy, fever, Raynaud's phenomenon, and mechanic's hands.