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Abstract
A 69-year-old woman with classical rheumatoid arthritis developed a severe dermato-myopathy during treatment with penicillamine. Remission occurred on withdrawal of the drug. Penicillamine (dimethylcysteine) is a pharmacological agent used for its chelating properties in the treatment of Wilson's disease and heavy metal poisoning, and in cysteinuria because of soluble disulphide formation. Within the last 17 years penicillamine has been increasingly applied in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, the mechanism of action still being unknown. A great number of side effects have been reported, including less common auto-immune disorders such as drug-induced systemic lupus erythematosus, myasthenia gravis and polymyositis. These and other possible side effects have been well reviewed by others (1,2). To our knowledge only a few earlier cases of dermatomyositis as a complication to penicillamine treatment of rheumatoid arthritis have been reported (3,4, 5). We describe here another case.