Endomyocardial biopsy is an examination, when “tongs” are inserted into the patient´s heart through the vessel system. They are inserted into the right or left heart ventricle and then four or five very little pieces of heart tissue are collected. The samples are sent for analysis. This is so called invasive examination, when medical experts intervene into patient’s body, however with a lfew recorded complications (approximately 1 %).

This method is not a standard examination method in the diagnosis of myocarditis. Medical experts indicate it just in some cases and according to the decision of doctors. A disadvantage of biopsy is that it can result in a “healthy” piece of heart tissue being taken. Other indication is, when experts have a suspicious on certain types of myocarditis, when a patient´s state of health requires immunosuppressive therapy (see chapter Immunological treatment), or when a patient with inflammatory cardiomyopathy could benefit from this therapy.

The aim of this method is to determine, which form of myocarditis a patient has and what are the changes in the heart muscle. Experts also try to find out the cause of the disease from heart tissue samples using PCR.

This method may not uncover the cause of myocarditis in all cases. The cause is not detected at half of patients with myocarditis who underwent biopsy. The result is also sometimes falsely negative.