Presence of the viral genome in the myocardial tissue of patients without clinical suspicion of myocarditis
Abstrakt
Between 2009 and 2010, we performed a prospective study on consecutive patients admitted for elective heart surgery due to primary noninfectious aortic or mitral valve disease with left ventricular ejection fraction >= 50%. In these patients, we aimed to assess the quantity of the viruses commonly associated with myocarditis.
Samples were collected during the surgery from the left ventricular septum tissue similar to the location of the endomyocardial biopsy sampling. To decrease the possibility of false-positive results as a consequence of preceding infectious disease, patients with the history of upper respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms within 4 weeks before surgery were excluded.
The study protocol was approved by the institutional ethics committee and respects the Helsinki declaration. All participating patients signed the informed consent including sampling of the tissue and nucleic acid (NA) testing.