Eosinophilic myocarditis is a condition resulting from various eosinophilic diseases, including helminth infection, drug hypersensitivity, systemic vasculitis or idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndromes. Clinical manifestations of eosinophilic myocarditis may vary from early necrosis to endomyocardial fibrosis. Eosinophilic myocarditis is one of the most fatal complications of hypereosinophilia. ...

BACKGROUND Tenascin-C (TN-C), an extracellular matrix glycoprotein, appears at several important steps of cardiac development in the embryo, but is sparse in the normal adult heart. TN-C re-expresses under pathological conditions including myocarditis, and is closely associated with tissue injury and inflammation in both experimental and clinical settings. However, the pathophysiological role o...

Myocarditis is clinically and pathologically defined as “inflammation of the myocardium.” Despite its rather clear-cut definition, the classification, diagnosis, and treatment of myocarditis continue to prompt considerable debate. The more routine use of endomyocardial biopsy has helped to better define the natural history of human myocarditis and to clarify clinicopathological correlations. Cl...

Fatal myocarditis is a rare complication in immunosuppressed children. Recent reports have linked human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) infection, typically a benign infection in childhood, with myocarditis. HHV-6 can reactivate during periods of immunosuppression. Here, we report 2 cases in which children were immunosuppressed, one for treatment of Evans syndrome and the other post hematopoietic stem ce...

Endomyocardial biopsy is the gold standard for diagnosing viral myocarditis. However, this method is rarely used as it is more invasive, less sensitive and has a higher incidence of complications than other methods. With recent developments in myocarditis research, cardiovascular nuclear magnetic resonance imaging has been demonstrated to have a marked advantage over endomyocardial biopsy, spec...

Background Because of anatomic proximity, myocarditis is often associated with pericarditis. Although randomized trials have not delineated a successful evidence-based therapy for myocarditis, there is evidence of considerable benefit in treating pericarditis with a regimen of colchicine and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). Cardiac MRI (CMR) is capable of detecting both myocardit...

Giant cell myocarditis, but not cardiac sarcoidosis, is known to cause fulminant myocarditis resulting in severe heart failure. However, giant cell myocarditis and cardiac sarcoidosis are pathologically similar, and attempts at pathological differentiation between the two remain difficult. We are presenting a case of fulminant myocarditis that has pathological features suggestive of cardiac sar...

OBJECTIVES This study compares the results of antimyosin scintigraphy in patients with clinically suspected myocarditis with histologic and immunohistologic findings in the endomyocardial biopsy. BACKGROUND In patients with clinically suspected myocarditis, antimyosin scintigraphy often demonstrates myocardial cell damage but histologic evaluation of the endomyocardial biopsy often fails to s...

The objective of this study was to apply transthoracic Doppler echocardiography (TTDE) in mice to study coronary flow reserve (CFR), an index of coronary microvascular function, in mild and severe forms of experimental viral myocarditis. Regarding methodology, BALB/c mice were infected with cardiotropic coxsackieviruses causing either a mild (Nancy strain) or a severe (Woodruff strain) myocardi...

BACKGROUND Previous studies suggest that children with myocarditis who receive heart transplantation (HT) may be at higher risk of post-transplant mortality compared with children who are transplanted for idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. We hypothesized that these differences are because of more severe heart failure at HT in children with myocarditis. METHODS AND RESULTS We identified 221 c...