So, Doreen, your husband is receiving intravenous Cytoxan as a first therapy for antisynthetase syndrome? No Prednisone or other steroid along with? I wonder if that treatment was chosen because of the lung complications...my own situation has been diagnosed as myositis and while lungs had some pneumonia, large muscles in upper arms have been dramatically affected -- weakened -- and my swallowing, too. The swallowing was such a problem that my pulmonologist felt for quite some time that it led to aspirating pneumonia, although now he accepts the rheumatologist's finding of myositis, which is known to produce a "secondary pneumonia" all on its own, along with muscle weakness and scarring of muscle tissue. At the moment my shoulder biopsy pathology report is waiting for a vacationing pathologist to return and finish writing it up, so some fine distinctions among various "flavors" of myositis haven't been made in my case, but I've been told my anti-OJ is a very rare serology. Unfortunately, rare means little-studied, so the implications are unclear. I'm not even clear on how antisynthetase syndrome fits within "larger" categories (as I presume) such as myositis, of which (again I presume) dermatomyositis is a subclass. In any case, the lung problems I'm having are worsening despite the course of 500 mg. Levaquin the rheumatologist prescribed as the very first coughing -- along with dramatically increased phlegmy congestion -- began building up a week ago. The myositis, with its compromised lung function and low-grade feverishness and growing weakness, but no coughing, dates back to March, and here we are as July is almost ending. Prednisone (60 mg.) got rid of the fever immediately, and lowered my 'CK' in ten days from near 7000 to under 3000. That was the first relief I got after three rounds of antibiotics had accomplished nothing during April and May and June, as I grew weaker and more emaciated, feverish the whole time unless dosed with Advil. Today (Wed. July 28) I see both my rheumatologist and my pulmonologist in separate visits. We'll see what they suggest for my chest, which is racked with knife-like pain every time I cough -- this is a totally novel experience that began some five days ago, and only shallow breathing and a concentrated effort not to cough can control it, although chewing Pepto Bismol tablets slightly lessens the severity of the pain and the likelihood of the cough, it seems. Intravenous immunoglobulin is already scheduled for a mid-August start date, but that's just steroid-sparing therapy, nothing specific for chest and lungs, so far as I know. Good luck, everybody! We all need it.