Does acute respiratory tract infection increase the prevalence of electrocardiographic abnormalities suggestive of myocarditis in children?
ECG abnormalities suggestive of myocarditis in children with acute respiratory tract infections occur at a similar rate to healthy controls, indicating they may be random occurrences rather than direct complications.
The prevalence of electrocardiographic abnormalities suggestive of myocarditis among 737 children with respiratory tract infection was 1.49%, which did not differ significantly from that encountered in a control group of 108 cases without respiratory tract illness. Six (46.2%) of 13 patients with abnormal electrocardiograms and 412 (49.5%) of 832 patients with normal ECGs showed laboratory evidence of recent virus infection. The distribution of virus serotypes was also the same in the two groups with and without ECG changes. These findings indicate that the ECG abnormalities were a random occurrence not associated with illness or with laboratory evidence of virus infections. Diagnostic tests more sensitive and/or more specific than the ECG are necessary to determine whether or not myocarditis occurs as a complication of acute infections of the respiratory tract.
Lewis P. Scott (Sun,) studied this question.