Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is a key component of current diagnostic pathways in subjects with acute myocarditis. The 2020 ESC Guidelines on Sports Cardiology recommend athletes with acute myocarditis to abstain from sports during...
The growing participation in competitive and recreational sports has increased the clinical relevance of Sports Cardiology, particularly for athletes with borderline or ambiguous findings during cardiovascular screening. Advanced imaging is essential...
Background/Objectives: Race-based cardiac screening criteria in sports cardiology, including the “Black athlete’s heart” concept, assume biological distinctions that may not reflect physiological reality. This systematic review eval...
Sustained physical activity induces morphological and functional changes in the cardiovascular system. While mostly physiological, they can also become a trigger for major adverse cardiovascular events, the most severe of which are sudden cardiac arr...
Sports cardiology is often introduced as the discipline that decides whether an individual with a cardiovascular finding may exercise or compete [...]
This Special Issue, “Sports Cardiology: From Diagnosis to Clinical Management”, was developed to reflect the expanding scope of sports cardiology, a field that now extends well beyond the assessment of competitive athletes alone [...]
Myocardial bridging (MB) is a congenital coronary anomaly in which a segment of an epicardial coronary artery courses intramurally beneath the myocardium for part of its length, resulting in dynamic compression during systole. Once considered a large...
Pectus excavatum (PE) is the most frequent chest wall deformity, representing 65–95% of all cases, with an estimated prevalence of up to 1 in 300 births. Despite its frequency, it remains underrecognized in sports cardiology. PE results from st...
Background and Clinical Significance: Anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery (ALCAPA) is a rare congenital anomaly. Such patients are unlikely to survive adulthood without a major surgical correction. Case Presentation: We report a...
The prediction and prevention of sudden cardiac death is the philosopher’s stone of clinical cardiac electrophysiology. Sports can act as triggers of fatal arrhythmias and therefore it is essential to promptly frame the athlete at risk and to careful...
Sports cardiology is an evolving field in cardiology, with several topics remaining controversial. Beyond the several well-known benefits of regular exercise practice, the occurrence of adverse clinical events during sports in apparently healthy indi...
Myocardial work (MW), derived from non-invasive pressure–strain loop (PSL) analysis, has recently emerged as a promising echocardiographic index for assessing left ventricular performance. It integrates speckle-tracking echocardiography with es...
Ventricular pre-excitation (VP) is a cardiac disorder characterized by the presence of an accessory pathway (AP) that bypasses the atrioventricular node (AVN), which, although often asymptomatic, exposes individuals to an increased risk of re-entrant...
“After a game is before another game” – When the famous German football national team coach Sepp Herberger once spoke these words he was probably not referring to pre-competition screening of athletes [...]
Sports cardiologists frequently face the challenge of distinguishing physiological cardiac adaptation to intensive training (“athlete’s heart”) from early or mild cardiac pathology, a dilemma in which both false-positive and false-n...
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is the reference method for the objective assessment of exercise capacity because it provides an integrated appraisal of cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic responses to exertion. However, CPET alone quan...
Ventricular repolarization abnormalities are among the most frequent electrocardiographic findings in pediatric athletes undergoing cardiovascular screening, yet their clinical significance remains a major source of diagnostic uncertainty. While most...
Antiplatelet and anticoagulation therapy are commonly used in the general population and sometimes in athletes experiencing cardiovascular disorders. In these cases, the treatment has to be tailored according to the individual bleeding and thrombotic...
Background: Sinus bradycardia and first degree or second degree Mobitz type I atrioventricular (AV) block in an athlete are considered adaptive and reversible phenomena; however, some evidence suggests that they may persist after detraining and becom...
Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) has shown promise in the interpretation of electrocardiograms (ECGs) using signal-based deep learning models. In parallel, large language models (LLMs) have gained increasing visibility in clinical practice, i...
The positive effects of physical activity are countless, not only on the cardiovascular system but on health in general. However, some studies suggest a U-shape relationship between exercise volume and effects on the cardiovascular system. On the bas...
Background: The use of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) in elite athletes following sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) or the diagnosis of high-risk cardiac conditions presents a complex interplay of medical, psychological, and legal challenge...
The usefulness of opportunistic arrhythmia screening strategies, using an electrocardiogram (ECG) or other methods for random “snapshot” assessments is limited by the unexpected and occasional nature of arrhythmias, leading to a high rate...
Background: ESC sports classification in 2020, based on cardiac morphological adaptations, may not fully reflect also the variations in functional parameters of athletes. This study aims to characterize CPET-derived physiological parameters in elite...
Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) were historically viewed as a barrier to vigorous or competitive sport participation, based on theoretical concerns about arrhythmia induction, inappropriate shocks, device damage, and shock-related inju...
The benefits of exercise for cardiovascular and general health are many. However, sudden cardiac death (SCD) may occur in apparently healthy athletes who perform at the highest levels. A diverse spectrum of diseases is implicated in SCD in athletes,...
Uricemia has been identified as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. In the general population, hyperuricemia is associated with hypertension, endothelial dysfunction, and other cardiovascular risk (CVR) factors. Our aim was to expl...
Although mitral valve prolapse (MVP) is the most prevalent valvular abnormality in Western countries and generally carries a good prognosis, a small subset of patients is exposed to a significant risk of malignant ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) and su...
An athlete’s training aims to achieve the highest possible sports results by improving physical dispositions which lead to cardiac adaptive changes. The annual training cycle is divided into periods. The preparatory period begins with gradually...
26 August 2020
Marathons continue to grow in popularity among amateurs. However, the impact of intensive exercise on the amateur’s cardiovascular system has not yet been studied. Analysis of the influence of the marathon on kinetics of biomarkers reflecting c...
Thoracic aortic dilatation is a progressive condition that results from aging and many pathological conditions (i.e., connective tissue, inflammatory, shear stress disorders, severe valvular heart disease) that induce degenerative changes in the elas...
(1) Objective: To evaluate: (i) the associations of age and disease severity with anthropometric indices and weight status, (ii) the difference in the frequency of sports activity among different levels of disease severity in paediatric patients with...
Background: Athletes can experience exercise-induced transient arrythmias during high-intensity exercise or competition, which are difficult to capture on traditional Holter monitors or replicate in clinical exercise testing. The aim of this study wa...
This comprehensive review explores the role of exercise stress echocardiography (ESE) in assessing cardiovascular health in athletes. Athletes often exhibit cardiovascular adaptations because of rigorous physical training, making the differentiation...
Pulmonary stenosis (PS) affects cardiopulmonary function and exercise performance. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) together with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) can measure exercise performance, PS progression, and treatment effects. We...
Background/Objectives: Athletes are characterized by distinct haemodynamic adaptations of the cardiovascular system, including descending aorta haemodynamics, that could influence the diagnosis of coarctation of the aorta. This study aims to evaluate...
Anabolic–androgenic steroids (AASs) are synthetic derivatives of testosterone and are increasingly misused to enhance muscle growth and physical performance, particularly among athletes and recreational bodybuilders. Although AASs affect multip...
Background: Competitive sports and high-level athletic training result in a constellation of changes in the myocardium that comprise the ‘athlete’s heart’. With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been concerns whether e...
Background: According to the ESC guidelines, sport disciplines are classified in relation to the predominant component (skill, power, mixed and endurance), including a wide range of disciplines with different isometric/isotonic exercises and exercise...
Several performance-enhancing or ergogenic drugs have been linked to both significant adverse cardiovascular effects and increased cardiovascular risk. Even with increased scrutiny on the governance of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in profession...
A recent surveillance analysis indicates that cardiac arrest/death occurs in ≈1:50,000 professional or semi-professional athletes, and the most common cause is attributable to life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias (VAs). It is critically important...
The aim of this study was to identify determinants of the cardiovascular capacity of 16 male amateur long-distance skiers during the transition period. These factors can vary from amateur marathon skiers, who represent a sort of midpoint between inac...
Premature ventricular beats (PVBs) in athletes are not rare. The risk of PVBs depends on the presence of an underlying pathological myocardial substrate predisposing the subject to sudden cardiac death. The standard diagnostic work-up of athletes wit...
Athletes with heart disease are at increased risk of malignant ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death compared to their sedentary counterparts. When athletes have symptoms or abnormal findings at preparticipation screenings, a precise diagn...
Background: Sinus bradycardia and first-/second-degree atrioventricular (AV) block in athletes are traditionally considered secondary to increased vagal tone and therefore reversible. However, recent studies have suggested that they may persist even...
Background: Physical activity is important for children with congenital heart defects (CHD), not only for somatic health, but also for neurologic, emotional, and psychosocial development. Swimming is a popular endurance sport which is in general suit...
Background: Previous studies demonstrated that variations of fT3, even within the euthyroid range, can influence cardiac function. Our aim was to investigate whether thyroid hormones, even within the euthyroid range, are associated with the magnitude...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is redefining electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis in pre-participation examination (PPE) of athletes, enhancing the detection and monitoring of cardiovascular health. Cardiovascular concerns, including sudden cardiac death,...
Background/Objectives: Myocardial involvement has been observed in athletes following SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is unclear if these changes are due to myocardial damage per se or to an interruption in training. The aim of this study was to assess card...
The 2016 European Society of Cardiology guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice have been recently published, with a large section addressing the benefits of physical activity on general health and control of cardiovascul...
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