Table 4.

Muscle characteristics of scleroderma patients with and without elevated troponin

	Troponin positive (n=83)	Troponin negative (n=189)	p-value
Maximum Muscle Severity Score
0	32 (38.6%)	123 (65.1%)	0.001
1	37 (44.6%)	48 (25.4%)
2	10 (12.1%)	12 (6.4%)
3	2 (2.4%)	2 (1.1%)
4	2 (2.4%)	4 (2.1%)
Abnormal EMG no. (%)	19 (22.9%)	20 (10.6%)	0.008
Muscle biopsy done, no. (%)	15 (18.1%)	17 (9%)	0.03
Muscle edema on MRI, no. (%)	16 (19.3%)	17 (9%)	0.02
CK ≥ 200, no. (%)	54 (65.9%)	57 (31.5%)	<0.001
Maximum CK ever, (mean ± SD)	514 ± 783	301 ± 553	0.01
Maximum aldolase, (mean ± SD)	15 ± 11	11.3 ± 6.3	0.003

EMG: electromyography, Muscle Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): T2 STIR imaging to evaluate edema. CK was available in N=263 patients, aldolase was available in N= 200 patients, EMG was available N= 39 patients, muscle biopsy data was available in N=32, muscle MRI was available in N=33