A day after the unfortunate demise of 'Dangal' child artist Suhani Bhatnagar at the age of 19, her parents have told the media that she was suffering from Dermatomyositis. It's a rare inflammatory condition that affects the skin. The parents said that the diagnosis itself took weeks.
Even after the diagnosis happened two months ago and treatment was started, there was no improvement in Suhani's health. "Eventually her lungs got damaged due to an infection and accumulation of excess fluid. She was put on the ventilator," the parents told NDTV.
Experts are weighing in with their opinions. Dr Uma Kumar, the HoD of the Rheumatology department, AIIMS, New Delhi, tweeted that patients consult a variety of specialists out of ignorance when the disease sets in. "As true for most of the autoimmune or auto-inflammatory rheumatic diseases, dermatomyositis also requires a high index of suspicion and caution in diagnosing as it has many mimickers. Often such patients report to a dermatologist, pulmonologist, neurologist, nephrologist etc before reaching to Rheumatologist because of the multi-systemic nature of the disease. It responds very well to the treatment, only about 5% of patients have a fulminant course," she wrote.
The expert added that dermatomyositis predominantly affects skin and muscles but can involve joints, lungs, heart, kidneys, etc. "It increases the risk of various cancers in the early few years after onset. Myositis has many subsets, dermatomyositis being one," she added.
