Severe transient left ventricular "hypertrophy" occurring during acute myocarditis.

We report an unusual sequence of echocardiographic abnormalities observed during the course of acute myocarditis in a young woman. Striking left ventricular "hypertrophy" transiently followed the normalization of marked segmental wall motion abnormalities. These rapid and marked alterations in left ventricular wall thickness suggest that myocardial inflammation and edema resulted in the transient appearance of myocardial hypertrophy. Our findings also indicate that contractility may be nonhomogeneously depressed in acute myocarditis.