Hepatitis B virus and myocarditis.

Myocarditis may be a serious extrahepatic complication of hepatitis. In this fatal case of serologically documented hepatitis B viral hepatitis, acute myocarditis was present, with histologic features consistent with a viral pathogenesis. Hepatitis B surface antigen was demonstrated by immunoperoxidase methods in small intramyocardial vessels, suggesting that hepatitis B virus infected the heart. The resulting inflammatory heart disease may have been caused either directly, by virus infecting the myocardium, or indirectly, by an immune-mediated mechanism.