Title:
Vaccine‐Triggered Acute Autoimmune Myocarditis: Defining, Detecting, and Managing an Apparently Novel Condition
Authors:
Saidi A. Mohiddin, Oliver Guttmann & Federica Marelli-Berg
Published:
Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA), 26 October 2022
From the scholarly article:
Among the seemingly endless “unknown‐unknowns” that the COVID era has foisted on policy makers, public health, health care providers, researchers, and the public is the apparently novel cardiac disease identified in this issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA)1 as ”myocarditis after COVID‐19 vaccination,” elsewhere as ”postvaccine myocarditis,” and perhaps in the future along the lines of ”vaccine‐triggered, self‐limiting, acute autoimmune myocarditis.” This potentially serious complication has been associated with serious harm, arguably most prominently through promotion of vaccine hesitancy, another complex mechanism underlying COVID19‐mediated harm.
A number of very different approaches will be needed to mitigate any harmful effects, including those addressing the whats, whys, and the hows of this apparently rare, currently idiosyncratic, and possibly unique phenomenon. Meanwhile, the clinician is faced with detection, monitoring, and management of affected individuals, a task further complicated by a knotty collection of significant limitations in our ability to manage myocarditis.