Abstract
Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is defined as a heart disease of unknown cause with enlargement and impaired contraction of the left or both ventricles. It may be idiopathic, familial/genetic, viral and/or immune, alcoholic/toxic, or associated with recognized cardiovascular diseases in which the degree of myocardial dysfunction is not sufficiently explained by the causative disease [1]. Recent clinical and experimental data have suggested a coincidental relationship with viral myocarditis [2].Viral persistence has been documented in both myocarditis and chronic heart failure [3–7]. While in the acute phase tissue destruction is caused by a direct cytotoxic effect of the virus, the extent of tissue damage and depression of cardiac function in the chronic state of the disease depends on the virally induced humoral and cellular immune processes. These may on one hand limit further expansion of the destructive process, but on the other hand they may themselves cause ongoing injury to the myocardium.
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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Kühl, U., Schultheiss, HP. (1997). Treatment of Inflammatory Cardiomyopathy with Corticosteroids. In: Schultheiss, HP., Schwimmbeck, P. (eds) The Role of Immune Mechanisms in Cardiovascular Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60463-8_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60463-8_25
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