[Myocarditis in early childhood. Two years' experience at the pediatric cardiology unit at the S. João Hospital].

OBJECTIVE: The authors studied 14 children with myocarditis in order to correlate clinical and laboratorial data with evolution. DESIGN: Retrospective study of all cases with myocarditis admitted during a 2 year period. SETTING: Unidade de Cardiologia Pediatrica do HSJ. PATIENTS: 14 patients, aged 7 to 34 months, with the diagnosis of myocarditis on the ground of biopsy or necropsy findings. The clinical data analysed were: medical history, physical examinations, hematological and biochemical studies, chest X ray, electro and echocardiogram, virus and immunological studies and cardiac catheterization. RESULTS: All the patients had congestive heart failure and 10 had a history of a previous viral infection. Those who survived the first week were submitted to hematological and biochemical studies, chest X Ray, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, virological and immunological studies and cardiac catheterization. All patients were treated with captopril and furosemide, 11 received dobutamine and 6 an immunosuppressive regime. Six patients died in the first week and one, nine months after diagnosis. One patient had an unfavourable course and the other six improved clinically. CONCLUSIONS: The authors were not able to find any correlation between laboratorial data and the disease outcome. Age less than one year and an abrupt onset were associated with 100% mortality. Immunosuppression was associated with improvement in 66% of the patients.