Oxidative stress in patients with acute coxsackie virus myocarditis.

Objective: To study the state of oxidative stress in patients with acute coxsackie virus myocarditis (ACM), and to investigate the pathological chain reactions of a series of free radicals and oxidative and lipoperoxidative damages in their bodies.

Methods: Eighty ACM patients and 80 healthy adult volunteers (HAV) were enrolled in a case-control study, in which concentrations of nitric oxide (NO) in plasma, lipoperoxides (LPO) in plasma and LPO in erythrocytes (RBC), vitamin C (VC), vitamin E (VE) and beta-carotene (beta-CAR) in plasma as well as activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in RBC were determined by using spectrophotometric assays.

Results: Compared with the average values (AV) of the above biochemical parameters (BP) in the HAV group, the AV of NO in plasma, and LPO in plasma and RBC in the ACM group were significantly increased (P = 0.