The outcome of acute myocarditis with cardiogenic shock is poor. In some children in whom aggressive medical treatment fails, artificial replacement of heart function may oVer lifesaving support until the myocardium has recovered. Four previously healthy children (three boys aged 4, 6, and 1 years; one girl aged 5) developed acute myocarditis with ventricular failure and multiorgan dysfunction ...

BACKGROUND Epidemics of enterovirus 71 infection have caused the death of many children throughout the world. Rhombencephalitis, brain stem encephalitis, and heart failure were present in all of the fatal cases. However, no evidence of myocarditis was noted in the heart specimens, and the mechanism of heart failure remains unknown. AIMS To characterise the presentation of cardiac complication...

BACKGROUND Myocarditis is a rare complication of therapy with mesalazine, a drug widely prescribed in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. CASE PRESENTATION We report a case of myocarditis occurring in a 49-year-old British man 10 days following initiation of mesalazine therapy for treatment of ulcerative colitis. He presented with troponin-positive chest pain, and the diagnosis of my...

Myocarditis classically refers to inflammation of the heart muscle. The mechanisms include host immune dysregulation and viral triggers such as coxsackievirus (CVB), adenovirus, parvovirus, and hepatitis C virus. The pathophysiology is initiated by viral proliferation in a susceptible host, inducing host immune response. The latter, when exuberant, leads to myocyte destruction and dilated cardi...

A case is described in which mitral stenosis was associated with a giant cell myocarditis; the latter lesion was, however, localized to the left atrium. A quite high proportion of reported cases of giant cell myocarditis have occurred in association with rheumatic heart disease. The nature of this relationship is discussed and it is concluded that, in such cases, the giant cell reaction may rep...

The aim of the current study was to investigate Fas and FasL expression and myocardial cell apoptosis in viral myocarditis patients. Human heart specimens were selected from patients who were autopsied between February 2012 and February 2015; of these, 25 patients were diagnosed with viral myocarditis. Another 15 cases with no diagnosis of myocarditis were selected for the control group. All ti...

Viral infections of the heart are a causative factor of myocarditis as well as of sudden, unexpected deaths of children, yet the mechanisms of pathogenesis remain unclear, in part due to the relatively few animal models of virus-induced myocarditis. In the current study, we examined the ability of polytropic murine retroviruses to infect the heart and induce cardiac dysfunction. In situ hybridi...

BACKGROUND Cardiac tests for diagnosing myocarditis lack sensitivity or specificity. We hypothesized that contrast-enhanced ultrasound molecular imaging could detect myocardial inflammation and the recruitment of specific cellular subsets of the inflammatory response in murine myocarditis. METHODS AND RESULTS Microbubbles (MB) bearing antibodies targeting lymphocyte CD4 (MBCD4), endothelial P...

Correspondence to: Dr Michael Burch, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London WC1N 3JH, UK; [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P aediatric and adult cardiological practices are dominated by (respectively) congenital and atheromatous heart disease. Some diseases are common to both specialities, an example being myocarditis. It is a paradox that a 15 year old child may b...