Knowledges of myocarditis, its diagnosis and treatment have undergone an enormous evaluation in recent years. However, physicians still have limited knowledges and possibilities in association with this disease, its course, diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, the treatment of myocarditis, specifically mainly of chronic myocarditis, mainly consists of support and symptomatic treatment, during which complications of the disease are treated (arrhythmias and heart failure). Generally, it is needed to determine treatment of an acute state and treatment of chronic myocarditis (chronic heart failure).
All over the world different research cardiological departments try to find causal treatment for myocarditis (treatment aimed at the agent-cause of myocarditis), which is really complicated. Some methods already exist, but they are still being studied. The effort of research departments to find a causal treatment is linked with the fact that myocarditis is considered to be the most frequent cause of dilated, respectively inflammatory cardiomyopathy, with increasing number of new patients every year.
A huge problem in the treatment of myocarditis (mainly its cause), primarily in its chronic form, is already mentioned limited knowledge of the disease course. Sometimes, even the principle of the effect of some drugs is not completely known and the situation is complicated even by the fact that researches, focused on the myocarditis or inflammatory cardiomyopathy treatment , are sometimes different in their conclusions.
The treatment of the cause of myocarditis in not easy from because it can be caused by an enormous number of agents (see this chapter), when each of them attack and damage the heart muscle in a different way (see this link).
When physicians try to treat myocarditis – if we talk about treatment of chronic myocarditis, inflammatory cardiomyopathy or generally about the treatment of myocarditis cause, they have to consider many other factors. Apart from the cause of the disease, they have to consider the extent of myocardium damage during inflammation. The bigger damage may be associated with a lower effect of the treatment. There is another important fact – when the myocarditis was diagnosed. If it was already in an acute state or already in the phase of chronic myocarditis and inflammatory cardiomyopathy (even though myocarditis is diagnosed “in time,” it could evolve in some case into chronic myocarditis, respectively inflammatory cardiomyopathy). The treatment effect is influenced even by the possibilities of “repair” to the myocardium after the inflammation – if a lot of “scar” tissue was produced in the heart muscle and because of that, whether the heart function is affected or not. An important fact also is, whether the immune system passes to chronic stimulation etc. (see this link), alternatively if antibodies against myosin and other auto-antibodies are present is the patient´s body even after myocarditis itself, and generally if autoimmune disorders are observed (auto-antibodies).
The treatment of the cause of myocarditis is complicated even by the fact that conclusions of every research must be controlled properly. You can find news from the research of myocarditis in category Research.
Author of the opening picture: Madprime