title: Synergy of molecular and serological methods in minimally invasive diagnosis of enteroviral cardiac infection.
abstract: Treatment of myocarditis and pericarditis can differ on the basis of aetiology: systemic or auto-immune disease can be positively influenced by corticoid therapy, whereas this kind of treatment can worsen the course of virus-induced disease. Therefore, the aetiological diagnosis is extremely important. The synergistic use of minimally invasive serological, IgG, IgM, IgA, and neutralizing titres, and RNA detection was evaluated on representative patients out of 238 suffering from cardiopathies. The results obtained for each case can yield reliable guidelines that rapidly highlight the presence of a viral aetiology so that an endomyocardial biopsy can be performed thus eliminating incorrect therapies. Thus, not only is this technique rapid, minimally invasive providing the clinician with decisive data, but it is cost effective for the health system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiological and Gynecological Sciences, O.U. Clinical Virology, A.O.U. Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele, P.O. Gaspare Rodolico, Catania, Italy.
authors.forename: Carmela M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Costanzo
authors.forename: Ines
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Monte
authors.forename: Domenica
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zappal
authors.forename: Concetta I
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Palermo
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Span
authors.forename: Raffaela
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Russo
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oliveri
authors.forename: Ildebrando
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Patamia
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Scalia
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002460:Cell Line; D002648:Child; D004769:Enterovirus Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000821:virology; D005260:Female; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009205:Myocarditis / Q000821:virology*; D010493:Pericarditis / Q000821:virology*