Abstract

Abstract Background Identifying markers associated with adverse events after acute myocarditis (AM) is clinically relevant to plan follow-up. We aimed to compare the prognostic performance of previously described cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI) markers: septal late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) localization and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF)<50% on baseline CMRI, versus complicated clinical presentation (CCP) of AM (defined as the presence of sustained ventricular arrhythmias or LVEF <50% on the first echocardiogram or fulminant presentation). Methods We retrospectively assessed 248 AM patients from 6 hospitals with onset of cardiac symptoms <30 days, increased troponin, and CMRI consistent with myocarditis. Results Patients had a median age of 34 years (male prevalence of 87.1%) and a median LVEF of 61% on baseline CMRI. Thirteen patients (5.2%) experienced at least one major cardiac event after a median follow-up of 1708 days. Among these 13 patients, 10 (76.9%) had septal LGE, 8 (61.5%) had LVEF<50%, and 12 (92.3%) had a CCP. The best performance was observed for CCP in terms of sensitivity (0.99), and for LVEF<50% in terms of specificity (0.90). The negative predictive value was at least 0.98 for all markers. Conclusions Major cardiac events after an AM are relatively low, and septal LGE, LVEF<50% on CMRI, and CCP are significantly associated with events. The most relevant finding is the high NPV of these markers to identify patients without events after an AM. This observation can help clinicians to monitor the patients after an AM, in fact, patients without these markers had an uneventful follow-up. Figure A] Acute Myocarditis with complicated clinical presentation (CCP AM) vs non-complicated clinical presentation (NO CCP AM); B] FE > 50% vs FE < 50% at basal cardiac MRI; C] Presence of septal late gadolinium enhancemnet (LGE) vs no septal LGE on basal cardiac MRI.

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