Skip Navigation



European Heart Journal Advance Access published online on June 26, 2009
European Heart Journal, doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehp172
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
30/16/1936    most recent
ehp172v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Related articles in EHJ
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Cooper, L. T.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Cooper, L. T.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2009. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The heat is off: immunosuppression for myocarditis revisited

Leslie T. Cooper*

Cardiovascular Division, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA

* Corresponding author. Tel: +1 507 284 3680, Fax: +507 266 0228, Email: cooper.leslie@mayo.edu

This editorial refers to ‘Randomized study of the efficacy of immunosuppressive therapy in patients with virus-negative inflammatory cardiomyopathy: the TIMIC Study’, by A. Frustraci et al. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehp249

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Non-ischaemic, dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is an important cause of heart failure and heart transplantation, with a prevalence of 36.5 per 100 000 in the USA.1 Depending on the histological or immunohistological criteria employed, myocarditis is present in ~10–50% of heart biopsy samples taken from patients with acute non-ischaemic DCM.2 When T cell and macrophage number are quantified by immunohistological methods or the definition of myocarditis is broadened to include expression of class II major histocompatability complex antigens and adhesion molecules, myocarditis is present in 40–50% of patients with chronic DCM.3 Of the many known causes of myocarditis, viral infection is perhaps the most important. From 25 to 40% of myocardial samples from patients with chronic, unexplained DCM contain viral genomes.4 Although a host of viruses have been implicated in myocarditis and DCM, viral infection is not always accompanied by inflammation.

Experimental studies in inbred rodents suggest a model of pathogenesis . . . [Full Text of this Article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?

Related articles in EHJ:

Randomized study on the efficacy of immunosuppressive therapy in patients with virus-negative inflammatory cardiomyopathy: the TIMIC study
Andrea Frustaci, Matteo A. Russo, and Cristina Chimenti
EHJ 2009 30: 1995-2002. [Abstract] [Full Text]  



This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Mayo Clin Proc.Home page
J. C. Schultz, A. A. Hilliard, L. T. Cooper Jr, and C. S. Rihal
Diagnosis and Treatment of Viral Myocarditis
Mayo Clin. Proc., November 1, 2009; 84(11): 1001 - 1009.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]