Why the study?
The authors sought to identify the most recent literature data on cardiac screening in children and adolescents across the last twenty years and evaluate the procedures used.
What is the current literature data and procedures used for ECG screening in children and adolescents?
What is the current literature data and procedures used for ECG screening in children and adolescents?
There is a scarcity of objective ECG screening measures in children under 16, highlighting the need for a multidisciplinary approach to differentiate physiological growth changes from early pathology.
ECG screening lacks validated pediatric norms below age 16; leaves open age-specific thresholds and multidisciplinary validation.
BACKGROUND: The reported data on ECG screening are focused on the last two decades. The objectives of this review were bifold: (i) to identify, within a timespan of twenty years, the most recent literature data on cardiac screening in children and adolescents and (ii) to provide data on the procedures used. METHODS: Queries were conducted using PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases for the time window of 2005-2025. The mesh terms used were "ECG", "Universal Screening", "Cardiac Pathologies", "Heart Rate", and "Sports Pre-participation Evaluation". Only research articles and review papers were included. The standard English language filter was used. Successively, only research articles were selected. RESULTS: Data from 14 papers were considered, reflecting the lack of information about subjects <16 years of age. CONCLUSIONS: The information on objective ECG screening measures is quite scarce, and it is an urgent need to introduce a multidisciplinary approach to differentiate between ECG physiological changes due to growth and ECG pathological changes due to early pathology.
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Zimatore et al. (2025) studied this question.
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