Acute myocarditis in 22 year-old man

Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease of the myocardium. Viral infection is the most common cause of myocarditis in developed countries and it may present with a wide range of symptoms, ranging from dyspnea or chest pain that resolves without specific therapy to cardiogenic shock and death. The diagnosis is made based on clinical signs and symptoms and noninvasive diagnostic tests, but the endomyocardial biopsy remains the gold standard for in vivo diagnosis of myocarditis. Following its general accessibility in clinical practice, cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging has become the key tool for noninvasive assessment of myocardial inflammation in patients with suspected myocarditis. We report a case of a young adult who was admitted for chest pain and acute dyspnea, and where the cardiovascular magnetic resonance was the key tool for the diagnosis of myocarditis.