Myocarditis

What?

Myocarditis is inflammation of heart muscle.

Why?

Myocarditis can be caused by a variety of conditions such as a virus, sarcoidosis, and immune diseases (such as systemic lupus, etc.), pregnancy, and others. The most common cause of myocarditis is infection of the heart muscle by a virus. Doctors believe that viruses cause the initial muscle inflammation. After the initial viral infection subsides, the body's immune system continues to inflict inflammatory damage on the heart muscles, prolonging the myocarditis, a process termed auto-immunity.

Symptoms:

• Myocarditis can be mild and cause virtually no noticeable symptoms.
• When it is more serious, it leads to weakening of the heart muscle.
• Myocarditis can then cause heart failure (with symptoms of shortness of breath, fatigue, fluid accumulation in the lungs, etc.) as well as heart rhythm irregularities from inflammation and/or scarring of the electrical system of the heart.

Prognosis:

• The prognosis for longterm damage is not predictable and only becomes evident as the patient is followed by the doctor over time.
• After the initial phase of myocarditis, some patients can experience significant recovery, others may develop chronic heart failure, and a few patients can develop fulminant heart failure, a fatal condition without heart transplant.

Patients who have had myocarditis are at some risk for sudden unexpected, potentially fatal, heart rhythm abnormalities.

Treatment:

• Except in systemic sarcoidosis and immune inflammation (such as from systemic lupus) where myocarditis can respond to corticosteroids, no proven effective medications are currently available for treating myocarditis.
• Current treatment of myocarditis mainly involves alleviating heart failure (salt restriction, water pills, ACE inhibitors, etc.) and treating as well as monitoring heart rhythm abnormalities.