Use of cardiac MR imaging to evaluate the presence of myocarditis in autoimmune myositis: three cases.

Cardiac involvement in patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (autoimmune myositis) is important to detect because it confers an increased risk of mortality. However, detection of myocardial involvement is hampered by a lack of sensitivity of traditional non-invasive methods, and the finding of elevated cardiac troponin T levels that may be due to regenerating skeletal muscle, rather than myocardial damage. Here, we describe three cases of inflammatory myositis with elevated troponin T levels, and non-specific echocardiographic and ECG findings. Cardiac MR imaging was useful in the evaluation for the presence of myocarditis or alternative cardiac pathology.