[Diagnosis of myocarditis]

Abstract

The diagnosis of myocarditis is still a major challenge in clinical cardiology due to the variety of infectious and non-infectious disease entities. The present review summarizes from the point of view of cardiopathology and infectious medicine morphological and molecular pathological findings in myocardial biopsies of patients with infectious myocarditis, most commonly induced by viral infections, in addition to non-infectious myocarditis mediated by immune processes. A clinical relevant diagnosis of myocarditis is achieved only by integration of clinical, histological, immunohistological and molecular biological findings.