SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Rheumatology
Adverse pregnancy outcomes in adult patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- People's Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning, China
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Objective: Studies of the impact of idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM) and its pregnancy complications have yielded controversial results. The purpose of this study was to perform a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to evaluate the association between IIM and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science databases were searched to identify reports of interest. The databases were searched from establishment to May 15, 2025.Two investigators independently screened literature and extracted data according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used for quality assessment. A random effects model with inverse-variance weighting was selected to estimate the pooled odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Data analysis was carried out using RevMan 5.3 software. Results: Ultimately, five population-based retrospective cohort studies involving 830 births of IIM patients were included. The results indicated that hypertensive disorders of pregnancy as well as rates of caesarean sections were significantly higher among pregnant women diagnosed with IIM compared to those without it (OR: 2.73, 95% CI: 1.76-4.23; I2=70%, P=0.01), (OR: 2.03, 95% CI: 1.37-3.00; I2=79%, P=0.002), respectively. Notably higher premature births were observed with infants who were born from IIM mothers (OR: 3.71, 95% CI: 2.35-5.85; I2=60%, P=0.06). Additionally, infants defined as 'small for gestational age/intrauterine growth restriction' were also significantly higher in patients suffering from IIM (OR: 1.90, 95% CI: 1.03-3.51; I2=43%, P=0.15). Conclusions: Our meta-analysis showed IIM to be associated with increased risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, caesarean section, preterm birth and small for gestational age/intrauterine growth restriction birth.
Keywords: pregnancy outcomes, Idiopathic inflammatory myopathy, Myositis, Meta-analysis, Pregnancy
Received: 23 Aug 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Meng, Huo, Huang, Huang and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yang Yang, yy201450040@163.com
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