[Myocarditis].

Abstract

Myocarditis is an inflammatory disorder of the heart muscle, and is often under-diagnosed in clinical practice. The etiology is most often viral in the developed countries, with a wide spectrum of natural history. While the association between acute myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy has been recognized for almost 200 years, the strength of that association is unknown. Viral persistence and autoimmune mechanism have been extensively investigated using human sample and animal model. Some models have demonstrated post-myocarditic DCM in the chronic phase of viral or self-antigen inoculation. In addition, we also propose a new hypothesis with repetitive viral infection. These mechanisms will be summarized in this review.