Myocarditis can resemble an acute coronary syndrome (ACS), even an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. Furthermore, when a coronary angiogram reveals no significant disease, differential diagnosis can be challenging. Endomyocardial biopsy is still the gold standard for the diagnosis of myocarditis; however, its invasive character and limited sensitivity restrict its generalized applicat...

OBJECTIVE This study was to evaluate the levels of NT-proBNP in patients with myocarditis which occurred after a scorpion sting envenomation. MATERIAL AND METHODS A total of 30 patients with scorpion sting envenomation and 21 patients with heart failure which was caused by cardiomyopathy, were prospectively studied. The data included the patient demographics, clinical features, echocardiograp...

Inflammatory dilated cardiomyopathy (DCMi) is a major cause of heart failure in children and young adults. DCMi develops in up to 30% of myocarditis patients, but the mechanisms involved in disease progression are poorly understood. Patients with eosinophilia frequently develop cardiomyopathies. In this study, we used the experimental autoimmune myocarditis (EAM) model to determine the role of ...

Coxsackievirus B3 infections of C57BL/6 mice, which express the MHC class II IA but not IE Ag, results in virus replication in the heart but minimal myocarditis. In contrast, Bl.Tg.Ealpha mice, which are C57BL/6 mice transgenically induced to express IE Ag, develop significant myocarditis upon Coxsackievirus B3 infection. Despite this difference in inflammatory damage, cardiac virus titers are ...

In 1995, the last World Health Organization (WHO)/International Society and Federation of Cardiology (ISFC) Task Force on the definition and classification of cardiomyopathies defined myocarditis (also named “inflammatory cardiomyopathy”) as an “inflammatory disease of the myocardium associated with cardiac dysfunction” [1]. In myocarditis, the inflammatory infiltrate of the myocardium is assoc...

OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to characterize the clinical profiles of pediatric patients with acute myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) before diagnosis. METHODS A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted to identify patients with myocarditis and DCM who presented over a 10-year span at 2 tertiary care pediatric hospitals. Patients were identified based on the In...

BACKGROUND Diagnosis of viral myocarditis is difficult by clinical criteria but facilitated by detection of inflammation and viral genomes in endomyocardial biopsies. Parvovirus B19 (B19V) targets endothelial cells where viral nucleic acid is exclusively detected in the heart. Microparticles (MPs) are released after cell damage or activation of specific cells. We aimed to investigate whether ci...

BACKGROUND The diagnosis of myocarditis is challenging due to its varying clinical presentation. Since myocarditis can be associated with significant 5-year mortality, and postmortem data show myocarditis in almost 10% of all adults suffering sudden cardiac death, individual risk stratification for patients with suspected myocarditis is of great clinical interest. We sought to demonstrate that ...

The World Health Organization/International Society and Federation of Cardiology (WHO/ ISFC) task force on the definition and classification of cardiomyopathies recently updated and reclassified heart muscle diseases. Myocarditis was defined as “an inflammatory disease of the myocardium . . . diagnosed by established histological, immunological, and immunohistochemical criteria.” Three distinct...

Myocarditis can be a rare late manifestation of acute pancreatitis caused by Coxsackie virus infection. Clinicians should be aware of potentially life-threatening myocarditis because immediate recognition and management are the cornerstones in achieving a better outcome.