Molecular diagnosis of myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy in children: clinicopathologic features and prognostic implications.

Myocarditis is the most common cause of heart failure in children. We investigated viral etiology of myocarditis/dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in children and correlated molecular findings with pathologic and clinical data. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or reverse transcription (RT)-PCR were used to analyze 59 endomyocardial biopsies from 48 consecutive young (<18 yrs) patients (pts) with clinical and histologic diagnosis of myocarditis and DCM, employing primers designed to amplify specific sequences of various DNA and RNA viruses.