• autoimmune diseases
• polymyositis
• dermatomyositis
• autoantibodies
• lupus erythematosus, systemic

We would like to thank Yang et al1 for their rewarding comment on our work, in which we report that patients harbouring anti-Ku autoantibodies with elevated serum levels of creatine kinase (elevated CK) are at risk of interstitial lung disease (ILD), whereas anti-Ku patients with anti-dsDNA are frequently affected by systemic lupus erythematosus and are at risk of glomerulonephritis.2

Yang et al retrospectively investigated 1214 patients with myositis (defined on Bohan and Peter criteria) in a single Chinese centre. Twenty-one patients (1.7%) had anti-Ku antibodies, defined as a fine speckled pattern seen at immunofluorescence, together with positive commercial assay results.

In accordance with …