Key result
Structural genetic heart diseases like AC and HCM cause most sudden deaths in young athletes.
Sudden death in young athletes is predominantly caused by structural heart diseases rather than occurring in structurally normal hearts.
Autopsy data link SCD in athletes to cardiomyopathies; leaves open optimal screening and prevention strategies.
The reported causes of sudden death (SD) in young people at autopsy include a variety of structural, often genetic, heart diseases. In young competitive athletes, arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (AC) in Italy [(1)][1] and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in the United States [(2)][2] are the most
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Thiene et al. (2019) studied this question. Structurally normal hearts are uncommonly associated with sudden death in athletes and young people, with structural genetic heart diseases like AC and HCM being the most common causes.
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