Do
you Harbor a Hidden Heart Infection?
Common
viruses linked to severity of heart condition SOURCE:
Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2000;36:1920-1926
NEW
YORK, Nov 14 (Reuters Health) - It has long been suspected
that common viruses can sometimes cause dilated cardiomyopathy,
an often-fatal condition in which the heart muscle stretches
out and becomes too weak to pump blood effectively. Now, Japanese
researchers think they have strong evidence that a certain
group of viruses--known as coxsackie B viruses--may be to blame
for severe cases of dilated cardiomyopathy virus. Any of various
simple submicroscopic parasites of plants, animals, and bacteria
that often cause disease and that consist essentially of a
core of RNA or DNA surrounded by a protein coat. Unable to
replicate without a host cell, viruses are typically not considered
living organisms.
Heart:
cardiovascular. my·op·a·thy
A disease of muscle or muscle tissue. In a study of 26 patients treated with
surgery for the condition, sophisticated viral detection techniques determined
that 9 patients were infected with coxsackie B viruses. The researchers from
Osaka Medical College in Takatsuki and Shonan Kamakura General Hospital in
Kamakura checked for eight other virus types thought to be associated with
the heart condition, but found none of them. In seven of the patients infected
with coxsackie virus, the investigators found evidence that the virus was actively
replicating. When they checked the heart tissue of 21 people who died of other
causes, none contained the viruses. Patients infected with the viruses had
a worse prognosis, the report indicates. Six of the nine patients with the
virus (67%) died within 6 months of surgery. Mortality was higher still in
the patients whose hearts harbored actively replicating viruses. But only 4
of the 17 patients without the virus (24%) had died within a year of the surgery. "Considering
these findings, an antiviral agent to coxsackie B virus should be used for
the management of this disease," the authors write in the November 15th issue
of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Coxsackie viruses take
their name from the upstate New York town where they were first identified
in 1948. Infection with these viruses is typically mild, although they can
cause more severe illness including inflammation of the heart in newborns.
A connection between dilated cardiomyopathy and enteroviruses, the family of
viruses to which coxsackie viruses belong, has long been suspected, but evidence
has been equivocal. en·ter·o·vi·rus Any of a subgroup of picornaviruses, including
polioviruses, coxsackieviruses, and echoviruses, that infect the gastrointestinal
tract and often spread to other areas of the body, especially the nervous system.
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