Clozapine-Induced Myocarditis: The Heartfelt Silent Assassin

Because this piece does not have an abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.

To the Editor: In the United States, there are approximately 3.2 million people—1.2% of the population—with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. While this percentage only represents a small fraction of the total population, it is estimated that one-third of these individuals have treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Although clozapine is the only US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved antipsychotic for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, its use is limited by its unique and rather intimidating side effect profile, including agranulocytosis (incidence of approximately 1%) and myocarditis (incidence of approximately 3%).