Cardiotropic Viruses in Cardiac Surgery Patients Without Clinical Evidence of Myocarditis or Myocarditic Sequelae

Overview

Myocarditis is mainly caused by cardiotropic viruses. In recent time viruses found in endomyocardial biopsies mainly consist of parvovirus B19 (PVB19) and human herpesvirus 6 (HHV6). A definite causal link between virus-genome detection of PVB19 and/or HHV6 (via pcr techniques)and cardiac inflammation and dysfunction is however still missing. Primary objective: To determine the prevalence of PVB19 and HHV6 virus genome in heart muscle biopsies of cardiac surgery patients without clinical evidence of myocarditis or myocarditic sequelae Secondary objectives: 1. Correlation of non-invasive myocarditis screening exams (cardiac magnetic resonance, ecg, history, inflammatory markers) with biopsy results 2. Prognostic value of virus prevalence for the postoperative course Primary hypothesis: Patients without clinical evidence of myocarditis or myocarditic sequelae demonstrate to a significant lesser extent inflammatory activity and virus genome in their myocardium as compared to patients being clinical suspicious for myocarditis.

Prospective monocentric study with to 2 arms Study arm: Cardiac surgery group, Control arm: Routine cardiology group Minimum of 100 patients included into the study arm Inclusion criteria for the study arm: Adult patients having cardiac surgery done under use of cardiopulmonary bypass Data collection: Past medical history, ecg, prior cardiovascular imaging (echo, ventriculography), cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), serologic studies, work-up of endomyocardial biopsies (histology, molecular-pathology, follow-up CMR.

Conditions