Prevalence of inflammatory myopathies in Colombia: Demographic analysis from the National Health Registry 2012–2018

Introduction: Using data from the Ministry of Health of Colombia, we performed an analysis of prevalence and general demographic characteristics of patients with inflammatory myopathies, with data from 2012 to 2018. Materials and methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study based on data from the Ministry of Health of Colombia. We used as key terms the diagnostic codes of the International Manual of Diseases related to the diagnosis of inflammatory myopathies. Results: We founded 12,401 individuals with a diagnosis of inflammatory myopathy and estimated an overall prevalence of 25.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. This diagnosis is more common in the age group of 65–69 years, and in the female population (64%), with a female-to-male ratio 1.79:1. In addition, we calculated a prevalence of 15.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for dermatomyositis and 7.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for polymyositis (based on a total population of 48,203). There is little information on the epidemiology of myopathies in Latin America, and records are essential to know their behaviour in populations. In Colombia, the Ministry of Health collects information from the health system, which has nearly universal coverage (around 95%). This information makes it possible to carry out epidemiological studies on different diseases. For the present study we analysed the available data on inflammatory myopathies in Colombia. Conclusions: The present work describes for the first time the demographic characteristics of inflammatory myopathies in the Colombian population based on official data from the Ministry of Health, where the most frequent was dermatomyositis and a predominance in the female population was evidenced.