[Acute myocarditis simulating myocardial infarct with regressive heart failure]

Two patients were hospitalised with severe heart failure and hypotension thought initially to be due to acute anterior myocardial infarction because of very suggestive electrocardiographic appearances. Heart failure rapidly regressed in both cases. The young age of these two patients, the pyrexia, rapid and total regression of the ECG appearances, the absence of atheromatous lesions at coronary angiography and clinical cure with a follow-up of 10 years in one of the cases, were factors in favour of the diagnosis of acute myocarditis.