MYOCARDITIS

The term myocarditis represents a spectrum of nonischemic inflammatory diseases of the myocardium. Both the acceptance of a morphologic myocarditis classification and the documentation by sensitive molecular techniques that cardiotropic viruses are associated with myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy have led to new debates regarding the pathogenic mechanisms responsible for the development of cardiac dysfunction in myocarditis. With increasing virologic and immunologic data suggesting that many cases of myocarditis and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy are part of a spectrum of immune-mediated cardiac disease, elucidating basic immunopathogenic mechanisms of myocarditis may have significant impact on developing therapies for dilated cardiomyopathy.