Meaning & use
myocarditis
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountablemedical
Inflammation of the heart muscle, often caused by a virus and sometimes making the heart pump weakly.
Grammar: Used as an uncountable noun: you say 'she has myocarditis', not 'a myocarditis'.
Patterns
- have myocarditis
- develop myocarditis
- be diagnosed with myocarditis
He was admitted to hospital with myocarditis after a bad viral infection.
Doctors say most young patients recover fully from myocarditis within a few weeks.
Rarely, myocarditis can lead to heart failure if it is not treated.
Common combinations
- viral myocarditis
- Viral myocarditis is the most common type seen in young adults.
- acute myocarditis
- Acute myocarditis can start suddenly with chest pain and breathlessness.
- be diagnosed with myocarditis
- She was diagnosed with myocarditis after complaining of chest pain.
- cause myocarditis
- Some infections can cause myocarditis as a complication.
- recover from myocarditis
- Athletes are usually told to rest completely while they recover from myocarditis.
Synonyms and how they differ
- heart muscle inflammation
- A plain descriptive phrase rather than a medical term; it is clearer to non-specialists but is not used in clinical writing.
- cardiomyopathy
- This means disease of the heart muscle in general and does not necessarily involve inflammation, so it is not a true synonym.
Word family
- myocardial adjective
- Relating to the heart muscle, as in 'myocardial infarction'.
- myocardium noun
- The medical name for the muscular wall of the heart.
- pericarditis noun
- Inflammation of the sac around the heart, a different condition with similar-sounding name.
Commonly confused: myocarditis or pericarditis? myocarditis or myocardial infarction?
myocarditis vs pericarditis
Pericarditis is inflammation of the outer covering of the heart, while myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle itself.
myocarditis vs myocardial infarction
A myocardial infarction is a heart attack caused by blocked blood flow, not inflammation, though both cause chest pain.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'myocarditis' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Myocarditis' is an uncountable medical noun for inflammation of the heart muscle, so it fits after 'caused by' with no article. The other options wrongly treat it as a countable object, a countable illness, or a plural noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “myocarditis”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.