Immunological defects precursors of myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy?

Anti-virus-antibodies are elevated in a relatively high number of dilated cardiomyopathies, and in myocarditis increasing or decreasing titers can characteristically be observed. In myocarditis as well as in dilated cardiomyopathy the high incidence of antibodies in the serum of the patients against myocardial sarcolemmal and mitochondrial proteins coincides with a low T-cell-suppressor activity. T-lymphocyte-cell-suppressor activity modifies the immunoglobulin synthesis of B-lymphocytes. The T-cell-suppressor activity has been found to be low in myocarditis as well as in congestive cardiomyopathies. This coincidence looks like a pathogenetic link, since a low T-cell-suppressor activity is generally correlated to an increased antibody synthesis of B-lymphocytes. The finding of a low T-cell-suppressor activity in a small group of normal individuals supports the concept that this group has a predisposition to suffer from myocarditis and later on developing dilated cardiomyopathy. Thus there are several indicators of a probably genetically determined immunological defects which can play a pathogenetic role in the development from myocarditis to dilated cardiomyopathy.