Myocardial damage assessed by indium-111-antimyosin: correlation with persistent enteroviral ribonucleic acid in dilated cardiomyopathy.

The persistence of enteroviral ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the myocardium has been implicated as a pathogenetic factor in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Enteroviral persistence may lead to myocardial cell membrane damage, resulting in increased uptake of antimyosin antibodies. To further evaluate this hypothesis, a direct comparison of myocardial antimyosin uptake with the presence of enteroviral RNA was performed in ten patients (one female, nine male; 53+/-8 years) with chronic dilated cardiomyopathy. Planar antimyosin images were obtained 48 h after the injection of indium-111-labelled antimyosin Fab. Using a region of interest technique, the heart to lung uptake ratio (HLR) was calculated as a semiquantitative parameter of myocardial tracer uptake. Cardiac catheterization was performed to assess left ventricular function and to obtain myocardial biopsy samples. In the biopsy samples, gene amplification by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to specifically detect enteroviral RNA. In the ten patients, the left ventricular ejection fraction was 39%+/-11% and the end-diastolic volume 131+/-46 ml/m2. The HLR was 1.72+/-0.21 and showed no correlation with functional parameters. In two patients with a positive PCR consistent with persisting enteroviral RNA, the HLR was not higher than that in eight patients with a negative PCR (1.46+/-0. 18 vs 1.78+/-0.18, respectively). These results suggest that increased uptake of 111In-antimyosin in chronic idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy cannot be explained by pure persistence of enteroviral RNA. Other pathogenetic factors such as myocardial autoantibodies or microvascular spasm may be responsible for myocyte membrane damage detected by antimyosin.