An athlete-focused echocardiogram may play a primary role in preparticipation screenings to prevent sudden cardiac death by identifying underlying structural or electrical heart diseases.
Does an athlete-focused echocardiogram improve the early identification of cardiac diseases in athletes during preparticipation screening?
Focused echocardiography by sports medicine physicians has the potential to become a standard first-line evaluation tool in preparticipation screening for athletes.
Sudden cardiac death (SCD) of an athlete is a rare but tragic event and sport activity might play a trigger role in athletes with underlying structural or electrical heart diseases. Preparticipation screenings (PPs) have been conceived for the potential to prevent SCD in young athletes by early identification of cardiac diseases. The European Society of Cardiology protocol for PPs includes history collection, physical examination and baseline electrocardiogram, while further examinations are reserved to individuals with abnormalities at first-line evaluation. Nevertheless, transthoracic echocardiography has been hypothesized to have a primary role in the PPs. This review aims to describe how to approach an athlete-focused echocardiogram, highlighting what is crucial to focus on for the different diseases (cardiomyopathies, valvulopathies, congenital heart disease, myocarditis and pericarditis) and when is needed to pay attention to overlap diagnostic zone ("grey zone") with the athlete's heart. Once properly tested, focused echocardiography by sports medicine physicians may become standard practice in larger screening practices, potentially available during first-line evaluation.
Palermi et al. (Mon,) conducted a review in Sudden cardiac death in athletes. Athlete-focused echocardiogram was evaluated. An athlete-focused echocardiogram may play a primary role in preparticipation screenings to prevent sudden cardiac death by identifying underlying structural or electrical heart diseases.