Abstract

Along with coronary pathology and obstructions of the left ventricular ejection pathway, acute and subacute myocarditis is one of the classical causes of sudden unexpected death which may account for certain of such cases in the young athlete during or after competition. However, a review of the literature indicates that the conventional use of the term myocarditis is too often based only on inadequate clinical or electrocardiographic evidence and not on a criterion of anatomopathological certainty, that is, an inflammatory infiltrate associated with signs of myocardial degeneration in the absence of coronary artery lesions. With respect to this essential diagnostic criterion, the pricipal statistical studies in the literature of cause of myocarditis considered to be the cause of sudden deaths during physical or sports activities were reviewed and the most indicative clinicopathologic cases summarized. This general review suggests that well-documented myocarditis is in fact a very infrequent cause of sudden death in the athlete; however, the contributing role of physical effort to sudden death, as evidence in experimental studies, should make sports activity inadvisable during any recent presumably viral infection. Verf.-Referat